| I feel like making these decisions for a range of schools for a student musician is not well-supported in public school. Our guidance department was quite useless. Maybe not every school is as clueless as ours. Having our son at MSM's precollege was helpful because his private teacher there has seen kids through the process before. But, really, it was up to ME to do research, talk to schools, other parents, and read the wealth of information here. I am on the fence about the value of the "All-State" performance opportunities. I have been flabbergasted, even, by the outright political nature of some of the youth performance groups. It really did seem like they wanted to know what you could do for them more than how talented your child was. But, this is really just my general take on it--having seen my son through only one audition for one of those.
Bottom line: I wouldn't have known how to gauge his level from what outside groups he was able to get into--having competent teachers at a Conservatory precollege was what did it for us. Unless the parent is a musician, I don't know how else to do it except through professionals who know your child. And we even had to screw up our courage to ask bluntly of one of his teachers: does he have what it takes? That was hard for me to do, but maybe not so for others!
And you have to look at your child's passion for his music. Does he eat, sleep, breathe it? Mine does--so I knew in my bones that he wanted to be surrounded by the best players and teachers if he could achieve it. So, there was no question about supporting his desire to try. |