<p>Specifically interested in Bienen
I believe Frost comes out March 7th </p>
<p>You will hear by April 1st 
I’m a pianist interested in the Bienen school as well. </p>
<p>It depends on the school, schools with rolling admissions can let you know pretty early, with the conservatories my son applied to it was all in the last week of march, before april 1st, but a couple of days earlier. Check the schools website, many of them have a specific date in mind, others it is more free form depending on department and such. </p>
<p>You may not hear by the specified date and that’s horribly nerve wracking. While schools are pretty good with getting the undergrad notifications out in time, they are not as conscientious when it come to notifying the grad students and they can drift in with some schools not getting them emailed until the night before the final decisions are due in.
If nothing else, this process teaches patience!</p>
<p>In very, very general terms (and there are always exceptions) you will hear from public institutions before private. Think of it this way, each school needs to find their competitive edge to secure top students. If school A competes with school B (elite institution), school A may send acceptance and scholarship notification at the beginning of March, follow-up with email and phone calls, and hopefully force a decision prior to scholarship packages from school B. You, as the anxious student/parent, accept the “bird in hand” offer prior to scholarship notification from school B. There are students who are getting acceptance/scholarship notifications right now, but it is on an individual basis, i.e. not the entire school or department. If those students decline, the school moves to the next candidate on the list. There are many moving parts. Generally speaking, if you are a blue chip candidate, you will be hearing from the faculty soon. Then again, if you are still auditioning at Juilliard and MSM, due to their late audition schedule…hold your breath and pray. It will all be over in a month. Good luck!</p>
<p>Places like Juilliard release their decisions all at once. I think it’s the same for MSM. There are definitely some schools who do it instrument by instrument, or individually. </p>
<p>“if you are a blue chip, you will be hearing from the faculty soon”. That was not the case with my S–he never heard from any faculty prior to receiving acceptance notices. He did not receive notices from most schools until the last week of March, many on March 31.</p>
<p>The wait didn’t seem like such a long time but now it seems like everyday is dragging. I’m sure a month from now I’ll be thinking that time has flown by but now a month seems so far away. </p>
<p>It is truly challenging – this waiting – for students and parents alike. I’m puzzled, though, by a couple things. Do financial aid packages come with the acceptance letter, or not? An acceptance to a pricey conservatory would be thrilling, but if it comes with no mention of support whatsoever, not so much, right? It would be rotten to get all excited about an acceptance, only to find out in another letter that the school isn’t offering anything. And if it happens that way, what does it mean? “Yes, we want your son, but not so much that we’re going to offer any merit aid.” Then why wouldn’t they offer the spot to someone else they want more? If they don’t have enough applicants at the level they’d like to see, then why wouldn’t everyone who is accepted get aid? </p>
<p>Usually financial aid letters come later, closer to April 1. Since grad students are supposed to respond by April 15, that does not leave a lot of time for appeals. </p>
<p>And to answer your other question, it’s hard to read what’s in their minds, but a lack of funding can indicate that your student is less “desired” than someone who received more. It’s hard to know, however. Also, beware when you read or hear parents who boast that their kids received “generous” awards without naming a figure. “Generous” could mean anything, but it’s easy to get a sense that everyone else is being offered giant scholarships while your student is offered a pittance. </p>
<p>Almost all acceptance letters for my sons came with the financial aid package at the same time, although a few did arrive a little later. Many institutions advertise themselves as “need blind”–which means financial means should not be considered at all when deciding acceptances. (You would think that all schools should do this–seems the most fair process). We were a family that did have quite a bit of financial need–and that did not appear to affect my S’s acceptances at all anywhere, although the financial packages did differ quite a bit from school to school. You have to really read those packages carefully when comparing schools.</p>
<p>For programs that accept only one or two students per instrument, it is not uncommon for the student to be told immediately where they stand…that an offer is coming and/or there will be a scholarship. This is a game of musical chairs, no pun intended. Top tier programs don’t want to lose their best candidates to other schools. Naturally there is some communication; i.e. the dangling carrot approach. Even so, some students may receive notification very late (as I mentioned earlier regarding conservatories still conducting auditions). Regardless the time/date stamp shouldn’t affect the excitement of a well-deserved acceptance. Whether one is notified now or in a few more weeks, an acceptance is a vote of confidence- period. Unfortunately, these type of threads seem to bring out the competitive nature in us peacocks. There is so much on the line, that any piece of conflicting information warrants a comment to the contrary. Understood. Cluelessbass, there is no black or white answer for you. You may hear from Bienen today or next month. Music education is ripe with nuance and rule-bending. Let’s face it, if the audition process was uniform and everyone was treated the same, none of us would be spouting absolutes from an over-heated keyboard. The process is more individualized than most people know. Good luck and let us know how you fare!</p>
<p>GH - I consider merit aid that covers over half of private school tuition generous. Thought I would add that since you used a word I used in another thread. Also, I did not use the word as a boast. I simply tried to convey that a merit award of some size was given before any financial aid forms were received. I am also pleased that there are some conservatories who know they are expensive and make a real effort to help students attend without being burdened by debt. Perhaps it is easier when the conservatory is connected to a LAC for this to happen. I’m just glad they do it.</p>
<p>I agree with bebopjazz, it is very, very hard to really pull much out of the admission process, because it is all so variable. A great candidate can get delayed because of a bureaicratic foulup, a student who is borderline for admission might get their notice first. There is also more than a bit of puffery around admissions, people taking pride out of the results, and you have to be really careful about what is said. The same student, for example, that got a huge merit grant at a small program trying to attract higher caliber students might be average at a higher level program or even less in terms of ability. Several admissions people at some of the top schools in forums I was in said that they used need even for merit awards because the caliber of student they admitted was such that it would be hard to do it on playing ability, given how close the students were. I also suspect that even if they don’t say it. Put it this way, if a kid is coming from a family where the dad is a CEO making 10’s of millions of dollars a year, I suspect it would be very unlikely for that kid, no matter how good, to get a large merit award…it doesn’t mean there is no such thing as merit awards based on talent, it just means that when you hear someone say their S or D got a huge merit award because they were so good, that it had nothing to do with need, don’t assume that because your S or D got less, that that kid was necessarily a superstar and your kid a slug, so much goes into these decisions that the only real proof in the puddingof what they do in school and beyond:). Put it this way, I know of direct examples where kids parents were claiming there kids got these huge merit awards because they were so great, </p>
<p>It is like the stories you hear of auditions, where people proudly talk about how someone on the panel praised the auditioning student, or is gushing praise, you have to be really careful using that as well. Most kids auditioning are going to experience anything from indifference to maybe someone smiling at them, and when I hear stories of the panel clapping and so forth, I am always a little dubious…again, trying to compare experiences with auditions or aid or when you get notified to see where you stand is a wasted effort…in the end, what matters is getting into where you think you can do the best, and then putting the effort in to make it happen:). </p>
<p>Well my daughter got her first acceptance about a week ago and has heard nothing about scholarship or merit aid. She has also gotten emails from teachers at the other schools she has auditioned for. All have invited her to attend a studio class. Based on some great advice from you all, I told her to also request sample lessons. I wish we had done that when we visited some of these places. Now we have to go back! More travel oh well. Has anyone requested that their kid stay in the dorms during the visit? I know Oberlin is okay with this but is this the norm? I would stay in a hotel of course. 
</p>
<p>Lots of good information here. However, I still urge OP and others not to worry if there is no pre-notification, even with schools that accept only 1-2 of an instrument (of which is true for my S). Every school does things differently. In my son’s case, schools only did their ‘carrot-dangling’, phone calls, and emails after the acceptance announcements went out–he was not given any indication or communication before that that he would be accepted or would receive a scholarship. (Naturally, after notification they would prefer to get a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer as quickly as possible so they can move onto their waitlist as needed–hence the sudden surge of communication). So, I guess all most of us can do is wait.</p>
<p>When do decisions come out? Not. Nearly. Soon. Enough.</p>
<p>And sometimes the best financial decisions are really, really late. Don’t lose hope!</p>
<p>Dradsmom, most schools will not allow visiting HS kids to stay in the dorms for a variety of reasons, so don’t count on that happening.
While a school may have an opening for, say, 2 flutes, there is often a larger picture that has to be considered for singers and that picture can vary widely. Do they have grads students? DMAs, Artist Diploma candidates? How do they cast productions? They look at the overall picture so that they can have a harmonious group (pardon the pun- I just couldn’t resist! :)) ; the object is not to end up with 15 lyric sopranos but no tenors! Students will be moved off of waiting lists to try to balance things but the ramifications can be felt several years down the line. It’s not unusual for programs- graduate, in particular- to say that they won’t accept applications from such-and-such-a-voice type in a given year. One school I can think of didn’t hear any mezzos last year and no sopranos this season, while another will not hear any females at all next year! Hopefully, schools will continue to be upfront and honest about that.</p>
<p>To the piano player who is interested in Bienen - last year we heard from them on March 21. It helped while away the time (for me, at least) to see when the last year’s students heard from the schools. Often the timing is similar year to year. But! Bienen’s financial aid/merit was NOT included in the email and didn’t show up for another few weeks. Same for Michigan - the acceptance came but then no word on any merit, until very late, as stradmom mentioned. So even with an acceptance in hand, you may not know how feasible actually attending that school is until the end of April. It makes for an exciting couple of months - hang in there! </p>
<p>I’m realizing that it has been four years since we went through this process and things have probably changed–back then it was waiting for the ‘fat letter’ as opposed to the thin envelope for many places. Does any institution do ‘snail mail’ anymore, or has every place gone electronic? I kind of miss that–it was pretty exciting to open the mailbox and see right away a big envelope, sometimes containing cool little gifts and even confetti. I got lots of exercise sprinting to the house to bring it to my S. Once I even hopped in the car and met S between classes to give him the fat envelope as I could barely contain my excitement! It kind of takes the fun out of things to just click open an email or portal in some ways, I think. And this time around, my S isn’t even home and so we won’t get to share the moment. Sigh…they grow up so fast.</p>