Milestone marker #1 - Page 2

BeezMom · 11-01-2009, 10:34 PM

Okay all - I'm absolutely jealous! My D has everything 80-90% done, but is dragging her feet on completion.

To the following up with Admissions: I was sitting in the waiting room for my daughter who was finishing up a shadowing day when I overheard the Admissions coordinator on the phone with an anxious parent. The parent was blaming the school for not getting back to her child, when it was found that the kid had mistyped her email address on the app. So - follow up is good. I'll be doing that as soon as I can get my daughter to finalize everything. Arrrgh.

Mezzo'sMama · 11-01-2009, 11:28 PM

KeyofH is spot on about the on line sites. Those will be your D's/S's best friends over the next few weeks. Remind them to check in daily so that if something is needed, they can get right on it. If you really feel that too much time has passed and you see, or read here on CC, that others have "heard" something, it's OK to check with the school. Better to do that than to wait weeks to find out that the application wasn't received! If at all possible, it's always better to have your kid contact the school though- just shows that they are really interested. Oh, and not to worry about those "times" for Eastman or anyplace else- they are not specific for a certain instrument and are certainly not applicable for Voice majors!! Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall in the screening room if a VP applicant actually DID send in a really lengthy recording?! That would be really something!

jazz/shreddermom · 11-02-2009, 02:06 AM

Oh my. My son has almost all of his application essay/work done, but isn't recording his prescreens until November 11th! (It's been very tough for him to wrangle his backup musicians and he wanted to use as much time as possible to rehearse). That gives us about 19 days to get the Dec.1 ones in hand. I hope it's enough time!

POTO Mom · 11-02-2009, 11:32 AM

Jazz/Shreddermom - I will tell you that we had three different recording sessions. It seemed that each time there was one little thing either the teacher or the accompanist or my D wanted to fix. It's great if you're in a position to be able to review your recording so you can see if it's what you want (before you let the rest of your musicians leave). Unfortunately, we weren't able to look back at the DVD until we had left the session and were at home. Looking back, if I had "practiced" the recording effort, I might have saved myself some time and money as well as improved on the quality. The location of the recording seemed to be an issue in each case and created problems on its own in terms of sound quality, background visual, ambient noise.

ariamom · 11-02-2009, 11:46 AM

Time does seem to work against everyone: the musician has to be ready to commit to tape at such an early point in the year as the deadlines come up so quickly. Our recording was done with school equipment by the band director in the same week the marching band qualified for state (my daughter sings in this year's program!). Getting all parties together is also madness. But the judges in competitions and auditors listening to pre-screens are accustomed to hearing through the technical flaws of recordings which is an equalizer for those whose equipment is home grown.

And FedEx is your friend--we got stuff in by deadline time sending the night before. It was heart attack time, but we got it done!

jazz/shreddermom · 11-02-2009, 12:53 PM

Poto, we have a videographer who is also a musician doing the actual recording, albeit only with a good camera and good external mic, properly placed. He's then going to cut the CD/DVD's for us, as nobody at my house has any time at the moment, least of all my son. I will recommend that they listen back before everyone leaves, though - that's a great idea.

Does Fedex overnight any day of the week? Including weekends? Does UPS? (We like them better in our neighborhood!)

ariamom · 11-02-2009, 01:41 PM

FedEx does pickups on the weekends--I think they are on Sunday as well. I know that at my local FedEx/Kinkos, the last pickup was 8:00pm on a weeknight and they guaranteed next day/end of day in their express pricing. So an envelope from Texas to anywhere was $24. And they got there. It is a huge relief!

ariamom · 11-02-2009, 01:46 PM

I lie. I don't think there are very many locations that have Sunday service, but almost all of them will have Saturday.

POTO Mom · 11-02-2009, 01:51 PM

We have the little UPS Stores all over the place here. You can go on the website and put your zip in and they tell you the closest one. They're open on Sat.

jazz/shreddermom · 11-02-2009, 01:52 PM

Yeah, ours has Saturday, too. And they're so much nicer than the Fedex place! Not sure about Sunday, though. I guess they deserve a day off.

violindad · 11-02-2009, 04:31 PM

Be careful about the UPS stores (different from a UPS depot). In my city, the store is open until about 3 pm on Saturday, but anything dropped off on Saturday does not actually leave our city until Monday! Call you UPS store ahead of time to verify when your stuff will leave your city if dropped off by a certain time on a certain day.

Both Fedex and UPS are amazing for delivery speed. Once the stuff leaves your city, if you use a high priority service, it will arrive the next day. I live in northwestern Canada and stuff picked up from my workplace at 4 pm by either service always arrives the very next morning by about 9 am in some little podunk town in NJ or Texas after 4 flights including clearing international customs. Beats the pony express!

BeezMom · 11-02-2009, 05:30 PM

I thank you all - Your express shipments are helping to pay for my D's college. If anyone has specific shipping questions, please PM me. While I work for one of the carriers mentioned, after this many years, I can probably give you details about either.

POTO Mom · 11-03-2009, 05:59 PM

Not to cut BeezMom out of any profits, but I have also used the regular old post office and asked for delivery confirmation. It costs all of $3 and made it halfway across the country in two days. You can track it on the website just like UPS and it will give you a delivery receipt with the date and time. Same service at UPS cost me over $15. Sorry Beezmom. However, I used UPS again today just cuz . . .

BeezMom · 11-03-2009, 08:22 PM

POTO Mom - not to worry. I use the Post Office as well. I just put my two cents in because I thought it might be funny! and couldn't we all use some humor right about now?

POTO Mom · 11-04-2009, 07:17 AM

HUMOR -YES!!!! I made my first (that I'm aware of) screw up on Friday. My D was sitting at the computer burning CDs and I read off the wrong repertoire to her. She burned it, labeled it, listened to it, mailed it and thank goodness, while standing in the shower yesterday, I had a flash of memory and ran to check the spreadsheet. ARRRGGGHHH. So that's where UPS came in and a note of apology to admissions. The story nightmares are made of.