<p>I haven’t been here for awhile, but just reread this thread. I guess I wanted to add, in order to avoid misunderstanding, that I think most of the replies to your post are describing preparation for a conservatory. Your original post asks about a “music college.”</p>
<p>With your now blossoming interests, you could consider applying to a liberal arts college or university, and either major in music there, or participate in musical activities offered. I know that at Tufts, for instance, something like 90% of the students either sing or play an instrument in the college’s music activities, such as orchestra, glee club, and also world music groups like gamelan.</p>
<p>One route might be to focus on the oboe, and then play in a school’s orchestra or chamber music groups. Another route might be to continue your more “holistic” (the word I used before) approach to music by also doing piano and theory. You can do whatever you want, and can afford, really…it is all good! </p>
<p>The main thing here is that you do NOT have to give up a normal high school experience to do music, in some way, in college.</p>
<p>The conservatory experience is sort of “hard core” and entry really does require the kind of preparation that people here describe.</p>
<p>The daughter that I have who is a dancer is similar to the musicians parents are writing about in their posts. She takes the train one hour each way, to take a dance class, 5-6 times/week. In 10th grade, she missed 60 days of school to dance (with permission from the school) and this year she is going to school only part-time, and doing 2 courses online. She misses sleepovers and proms. She mostly lives her high school life with other dancers who are in their 20’s and 30’s. She now dances in a company, which takes even more time.</p>
<p>She is sublimely happy.</p>
<p>I ask her all the time if she would rather have a more normal life, or if she would like to take some art classes (she is talented in art, actually), and she looks at me as if I am crazy.</p>
<p>She is not doing this because she “should” do it. In fact, she has even heard quite the opposite from some quarters. She is completely driven to live like this, with no real thoughts in terms of getting in to conservatory, although, now, at the end of 11th grade, she is trying to decide whether to do that, or just dance…But she can’t seem to find the time to look at catalogs- too busy dancing!</p>
<p>Student musicians have dedication and drive like this. It is a wonderful thing, but a serious choice too. The thing is, and I think other parents will agree, they are happy doing this and wouldn’t choose another path (not that conflict over this is absent in everyone, and it does crop up for even the most committed, as it should).</p>
<p>I would guess that you could get pretty good at the oboe, and really, really enjoy music for years to come, but that you might not want to practice the hours and hours needed to get in to a conservatory. So many colleges, of so many types, have wonderful things going on with music, and the students participating have all kinds of different things going on in their lives, as they did in high school.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you find yourself very, very eager to concentrate on the oboe, and continue to be interested in a conservatory or music performance major, there is a lot of great advice here for you…</p>
<p>Take care…and good luck!</p>