Why do some colleges require 4 songs for VP audition, but most want 2?

My S has come across 2 schools that require 4 songs at the audition. Unfortunately, that knocked him out of the pool.

He was admitted to both colleges in their business programs since he couldn’t apply to their school of music, and is hoping he could transfer into the music dept as a freshman once he had the 4 songs.

He’s only been with his vocal coach for about 20 months now, but he was very involved in MT throughout high school and only focused on the classical side with her in between shows. They mostly work on his MT songs, and prescreens/auditions were right in the middle of spring musical season, so that 4th song just wasn’t happening.

My (obviously biased) opinion is that if he passed all his prescreens, other schools saw some potential in him, and these 2 schools are losing out…it just stinks that one of them would have been a top contender since the school itself gave him an OOS Tuition Waiver to attend, but he can’t get an audition!

I think the schools are looking for students who can learn 4 songs. D auditioned at several schools that required 3 songs, on that required 4 and one that required 5 (requiring only 2 is relatively rare). One school only listened to 1 song (she did not get in). Three schools listened to 2 (she got in to all) and the school that required 5 listened to three. In each case she picked one and the school picked the other,

S had to prepare over an hour and a half of piano music. This amounted to 13 movements. No one listened to one of the pieces (the etude). All of the others listened to the beginnings of the 1st movements. No one listened to any of the second, third or fourth movements. He prepared 1 1/2 hours of music and everyone listen to the same 15 minutes.

I really think they do it to limit the field.

In college, my D (vocalist) has had to learn 4 songs per semester for juries. That doesn’t include additional ensemble pieces or songs for her outside of school pursuits. She spent 1/2 of last semester sick and unable to practice much of the time, making life quite difficult.

I don’t know how long your S had to prepare. Couldn’t he have applied and scheduled a future audition, then learned a song or 2?

i’d think college expectations would be to be able to learn a song in a couple of weeks (or less).

This may be a good thing to look into (expectations) before he commits to a school to be sure he is going to be able to keep up the pace while being involved in all that he wants to participate in.

Good fit is really important! Good luck!

I guess he was kind of late to the game. I don’t know anything about music, so that’s why I’m asking. I just pay for the voice lessons! lol

Sorry, I sounded kind of whiny in my post, and I didn’t mean to. I get that he’s not prepared for some programs.

He only sees the voice coach once a week and she takes off during the summer. I didn’t think it was an issue until I learned about prescreens and auditions and that he would never be ready for 4 songs by the time he did EA Nov. 1.

Learning curve…maybe EA wasn’t as important as taking the time to have 4 songs!

For the most part, he’s a Music Business kid so he wasn’t really preparing for an intense BM program. He took AP Music Theory this fall, loved it and said a few things started to come together for him and he wanted to try to expand his scope to studying Music and not just the Music Business end. Guess he just won’t be doing it at those schools!

It’s all good:) He has many options to choose from, including both those schools (just not in their music dept).

Thanks for the insight!

I think there are some good comments here. FYI at SUNY Purchase we were told they would learn 1 song a week in the language they are taking, ie French, Italian, German so I think that is why alot of schools want 4.