alexmariejp

A point I didn't see anyone about mention is that you said in the letter the school said

'they don't "believe he is ready to major in music" '

That tells you a great deal there, probably more than talking to the panelists would do (unless he has a previous relationship with the panelists). It was his first audition, so nerves can always be an issue, but depending on the instrument (what is it btw?) perhaps there are issues he can be working on that he and his teacher already know about. If you are intent on contacting the school, you might want to have his private teacher do so. Then it really does come off as "we are seeking to learn what we can improve" as opposed to "why didn't you accept me?" Auditions include more than the playing of your instrument. You have theory tests and aural skills and piano skills sometimes. Perhaps the weakness was in one of these areas?

Good luck to your son and you, but I echo the comments of having a few schools that don't require auditions in his plan!

glassharmonica

Your son might also consider the possibility of Plan B as a a gap year, to improve his skills (if he does want to major in music at an auditioned program.) I've known many students (a dozen or more) to do this; as far as I know, all of them have gone to one of their top choice schools after their gap year.

SJSMOM

Sorry I keep forgetting to write that he plays the trumpet.

CLRN8MOM

Was the comment “We don’t believe he is ready to major in music” or “We don’t believe he is ready to major in music HERE”. Could academics have been part of it? A performance degree at a university has quite a bit of academic work to do, including lots of papers to write. The audition may not have been their only criteria.

I feel for your poor son. My D’s first rejection (wait-listed) was at her “safety”. After the audition, we thought she was golden. Analyzing everything that happened, we finally decided that she simply had not shown enough interest in the school.

She ultimately got into a great program and is very happy. There is a very good chance that things will work out just fine for your son.

alexmariejp

Ray Vega is the trumpet professor there. He is kind of, well, famous, so I am sure they get many, many trumpet auditions (probably very jazz heavy) each year. It's like my D's audition coming up in January at Vanderbilt - Edgar Mayer is a professor there. They get a RIDICULOUS amount of bassists applying there each year just to have a chance to play for and learn from Edgar Meyer. She would love to have that same chance, but she is very aware that there are going to be a boatload of bassists trying for those same 2 or 3 slots, so if she doesn't get in, she won't be as crushed as she might be ordinarily. Did your son pick the school because of Ray Vega? If he did, you can be sure a whole bunch of other trumpeters did the same thing... Knowing the instrument and the teacher combo, I would worry about it less and just practice and focus more on his other options!

SJSMOM

The letter said "We don’t believe he is ready to major in music at UVM". App submitted after audition so that was not a factor. He wants to major in music ed, not performance.
I do understand this is his first audition but I guess that first rejection is just a shock. As to alexmariejp's comments - you are absolutely right - he auditioned with Ray Vega - but that is not sole reason he chose school. Like everyone says - he will just have to take into consideration many of the things you all posted, practice more, and focus on the
upcoming auditions!

tomdug

@SJSMOM: If your son is doing regular admission elsewhere, he probably has two months, or so, until auditions. That's enough time to polish some, if not all, of his audition pieces. I would try to get the opinion of a second teacher. Whenever my kids switched teachers, there was always a significant jump in progress. New eyes, new ears, and new areas of focus. Find the best pro in your area and try to get some lessons. Even if his current teacher is great, a second opinion is a good idea. My S plays trumpet and if you need help tracking down a teacher, post on Trumpet Herald (trumpetherald.com) or PM me.

Singersmom07

You just mentioned he wants to major in music ed, not performance. In this case, the audition is not the all deciding factor. There is usually some kind of interview too to discern his real interest and aptitude in education. Did he have any kind of interview there? If so , he may want to think about his response to the questions and also what his application says about his interest in teaching children and doing the things required for a K-12 education major. Also, I am not familiar with that school but in many the principal studio professor may not even take a non-performance major. It still could have been the audition, but don't discount the other factors for education admission.

imagep

You might also want to investigate the possibility that his performance was hindered by extreme nervousness.

When in high school my son would get very nervous any time that he was being personally evaluated, but was never nervous when playing as part of an ensemble, not even as a soloist in an ensemble.

We were being told by his private music teacher that he was a top performer, but he bombed out of several several auditions for various ensembles. he would litterally shake when performing for an individual evaluation, even when he was comfortable with the evaluator and it effected his performance. I can't speak in public, I get tremors and hot flashes when trying to speak in public, and in job interviews. I ended up changing my career goals because of this.

I didn't want my son to have to change his career choice due to his nerves, so we sought professional help. With the aid of professional help he was able to resolve his nerve issues, and he was accepted at all of the colleges he auditioned at. After finding a way to resolve this issue, he now gets complements on how comfortable he seems to be while being the only person on stage.

Turns out that what he (and I) has is a medically recognized condition. his body over produces adrenolin when under psychological stress, and since auditioning doesn't allow for people to run around or to lift cars or anything like that, the adrenaline manifested itself in detrimental symptoms, mostly shaking.

At my son's first audition, we ate lunch with another student who was auditioning. I am sure that she was probably an excellent performer, all of the schools that she was auditioning at were high level colleges. But she was so nervous, even during our lunch, that she could barely speak. I fear that her nerves may have kept her from being accepted (I have no idea if she was accepted or not). As nervous as she was at lunch, I think that she would have been a total wreck while being asked questions during the audition. Your student should be prepared to not only be asked questions, but to be able to respond with more than a simple "yes" or "no", they expect elaboration, especially for a music ed candidate (performers are almost expected to be a little "weird", but not so much for teachers).

Prior to seeking professional help, he had tried to explain to several people that he got too nervous, and all they said was "everyone gets nervous you just have to deal with it". What they didn't realize was that the physical symptoms of his nervousness were not normal.

You might want to speak with your student about this and try to figure out if his audition was hindered by physical nervous symptoms. There is help for this type of thing.

And...

my son felt like every audition that he had was better than the one before. he made more improvement in his playing skills during the two month span of his auditions than he had made during the entire year before. It's very likely that your student may improve enough during this process that he will do much better during later auditions. Many colleges have auditions as late as late as March. just make sure that he applies at enough schools and schedules his auditions over as long of a period of time as possible so that he can take advantage of this improvement

and another thing...

none of my son's auditions were perfect. From what I understand that is pretty normal. If a student was perfect in any way, he would have little need for college. just make sure that he understands that if he makes a mistake, that's fine, and that he shouldn't allow a mistake to dishearten him during his audition process. It's GOING to happen.

musicprnt

From the description it sounds like his audition didn't go well and that was the reason for being rejected, if it was academic it probably would have taken longer to get a rejection. Basically, if the audition doesn't go well they probably don't even look at the academics, where academics count.

Also, as a general FYI, music theory and ear training exams, at least in performance programs, don't count towards admission, those are done strictly for placement if the student ends up going there. In a conservatory the audition is pretty much the whole deal, in music school in a university students have to pass the audition and meet the academic requirements.

Though Music Ed if what I know of it is true (and keep that in mind) might not have the same standards as a performance major would, there still is a pretty high standard of playing. It could be your S was nervous, or simply wasn't ready, from the description it sounds like it was the audition that did him in IMO. I don't know how much feedback you could get, but I agree, the best approach is to do it on the basis of not 'why didn't I get in" but rather "I would like to improve, do you have any specific suggestions?". I don't know if having the private teacher call is better or not, that might be a good suggestion, maybe the person at the school would feel better about giving comments to the S's teacher.

SJSMOM

Thanks everyone for all the input - very very helpful. DS meets with private teacher this week and will discuss with him. I am still leaning towards sending an email to audition professor and asking "how to improve" and if we hear nothing back, so be it, at least we tried.

jazz/shreddermom

I've posted this several times before, but pretty much the only schools that rejected my son were his two "safeties," one of which was a local state school. We wonder if they sensed his attitude about the school (could "not ready to major in music here" be a "form" response?), if they had only one spot (or no spots) for his instrument, or... who knows what. The other rejection was based on his pre-screen (that school did not have live auditions for his major, and he's definitely better "live.") Oh, and a third place where his audition went horribly wrong - long story there that I won't get into, but think "accompaniment" and you'll have the gist.

Meanwhile, he was admitted to programs "known" to be more selective, including the one he attends.

Still, asking for feedback never hurts. Nothing to lose!

KatMT

When asking for feedback the email should come from the auditionee, not the parent.

I know I respond to all emails asking for audition feedback that the auditionee should email me so we can set up a time for me to give him or her feedback over the phone.

Many schools will not give feedback, but it never hurts to ask

Sent from my DROID RAZR using CC

TrumpetDad

My son's first response was a pre-screen rejection [Northwestern, our biggest reach], this when we had little idea of what to expect from this process. It really threw him for a loop, thinking he'd at least get past the prescreen, and then, most likely, not get accepted academically. A lot of negative thinking started to creep in. But after that it was all good news: 6 acceptances, 5 with scholarsips, and 3 of those sizable. Kind of a funny part of where he ended up enrolling is that it's the same school [Loyola New Orleans] attended by the head of jazz studies at Northwestern as an undergrad. He's very happy at LoyNO, so it all worked out fine in the end, but it was stressful going through it all.

chemusic

Tell your son just to keep practicing and playing his pieces for others. He will probably improve quite a bit in the next month or so. He wants to give it his best shot, right? So he just needs to 'hang in there' for another couple months. Then he can take a break knowing he gave it his all.

I agree with the others that said he should have a couple of non auditioned schools in the mix - ones with music programs that he feels comfortable in. He may find a warmer, more supportive music environment at a liberal arts school and several LACs have strong music programs. As for the music ed, several schools also have education certificates as an option, which can be supplemented by classes at a local music U in the summer.

Let him know there is still plan A , but plan B or plan C may actually be more fun for him.