<p>Mother of Junior Bassoonist here, preparing to spend the summer filling out applications and working on The Auditions. Visited CMU, BU, UMd, Peabody, Eastman, Juilliard, NEC, Northwestern and Curtis. D likes all teachers, NW not so much. Really, really likes the conservatory atmosphere. For all you weary veterans, what would you have done differently if you could do it all over?</p>
<p>Marjecat, welcome. Here’s an ongoing thread with a number of experiences.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/248498-since-hindsight-20-20-what-would-you-have-done-differently.html?highlight=hindsight[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/248498-since-hindsight-20-20-what-would-you-have-done-differently.html?highlight=hindsight</a></p>
<p>I just PMed you but thought I would reply to this one as well being the Mom of bassoonist going off to NEC next year. Sound like you are doing all the right things so far, meeting the teachers and getting lessons NOW. We started in the spring of her junior year and spent months visiting college and getting lessons. Thank God my husband spends his life on airplanes because we put his frequent flyer miles to good use! We visited many great schools and my daughter wound up only applying to 7. I do wonder if she should have applied to more. Most of her music performance friends applied to nine or ten.</p>
<p>1) Definitely include a couple of safeties - especially financial safeties. You may think that the world wants bassoons but that is not necessarily the case, especially at the conservatories. I think this was probably the one thing I would have done differently - Not been so sure she was going to get big money from everywhere because she was a bassoonist. We were hoping for major scholarships all around for my daughter, who is a very talented bassoonist, but because she applied to mostly conservatories, that did not happen exactly. Turns out there are ALOT of talented bassoonists right now. We did get decent scholarships but not as large as I had hoped. And since most of these places cost around $50K a year, you need to be prepared. So don’t assume anything no matter how gifted you think your child is. </p>
<p>2) I may be wrong about this, but be careful about how early you send in your applications. Because she applied so early to everywhere ( she was done with apps by the end of September), she seemed to get the first early morning audition slot for just about EVERY school! This turned out to be not such a good thing sometimes. She was tired from traveling and got a bit stressed out about being first. I don’t think being first is ever a good thing when it comes to auditions. It only really hurt her for one school but that was a very important school to her.</p>
<p>3) If you have to audition with an accompanist, make sure she has adequate time to rehearse with them. For one of her auditions, the school assigned her one and he rehearsed with her for about 10 minutes for two full concertos. He had 30 other people to work with after her and he figured 10 minutes was enough. For her audition, he played her piece way too fast. So if you can bring your own accompanist, one who has worked with your daughter before, do so. The sad part of us is that we HAD an accompanist that had played this piece with her before for All State competition but we figured everyone else was using the school’s accompanist so why not us?</p>
<p>4) Even though your daughter is looking at most of the top conservatories/universities, there are some other schools that my daughter refused to consider that maybe she should have such as University of Michigan - great bassoon dept, Florida State University (great bassoonist there as well and we know two people who got full rides there), and Arizona State University. I sometimes wonder if I should have put my foot down and insisted she at least visit these schools. But I guess in the end, you can’t force your child to go to a school they don’t want to, even if it means more scholarship money. They just wouldn’t be happy. But if your daughter will consider larger university settings at all, I would firmly suggest putting Indiana University, UM, and FSU on her list. At least take a look at them. IU gave her a good scholarship and it was less expensive. Just turned out to be too big for my daughter in the end.</p>
<p>Well good luck!</p>
<p>Who, beside Juilliard, required an accompanist??</p>