Congrats! And welcome! I hope your daughter will have a fabulous time. Oberlin is a special place. I’m already missing it and my son still has one more year, LOL.
And major congrats on such a successful admissions process- take a breath-- you’ve earned it and so has she.
Congrats @Clara30 !!! Well done. Please switch my son’s acceptance to IU and his merit there to $38,000. Thank you
Congrats! My daughter is set on Oberlin, too! It just felt like home to her.
Congratulations! What an ordeal for all us but all worth it. I am not yet done and will wait for until the final few hours since we are waiting for some appeals. But almost there 
Congrats!
My son was in almost the same situation: IU’s extremely generous updated offer made the decision very difficult but he ultimately felt Oberlin, who also increased their offer after a 2nd appeal, was a better fit with it’s smaller, clearly very supportive and collaborative community, not to mention the clearly laid out dual degree path. The higher cost hurts a bit, but I do think it gives him the best chance to succeed, so I’ll gladly take it on.
Wow, Congratulations! I read your son accepted UNT, what’s the biggest factor on the switch?
Congrats to all on Decision Day!!!
My son also committed to Oberlin! I jointed the Oberlin parents page on Facebook and am already learning a lot. What a year. I’m exhausted - congrats to all on making it through!
Congratulations! Oberlin is winning the school game now. Wish we had applied there.
Whatever happened to UMich? Just curious.
IU had always eeked out UNT, but he loved both programs and both school’s professors. UNT is very affordable, and he was set. When IU asked what an acceptable award would be, he had to be honest because IUs cost was very high. So he asked them to match UNT and they did. The deciding factors were mostly because its a smaller percussion studio, but it’s not small. UNTs studio has about 100 students at least. Jacobs has 50. He really connected with the IU professors, he likes that its Big 10 and he likes the campus better. He was willing to go to UNT 100%, but IU won him over. We can drive to IU, we’d have to fly to TX, and I think that bothered him slightly.
The different schools’ parents page are great! We are on the University of Miami’s and so many lessons learned and information sharing! It is great to know you aren’t going at it alone.
UMich was hard to decline :). My son loved the professors at both schools. UMich felt too big, Oberlin felt too small. In the end he was swayed by his private teacher who has a ton of respect for the 2 Oberlin bass profs, by the dual degree program that Oberlin has (he got into a similar program at UMich, but he felt like Oberlin has more solid support for dual degree kids), and by all the people we talked to over the last couple of months who went to Oberlin and rave about it.
It was a very hard decision. I’m happy with his choice, and my fingers are crossed that it works out well for him! I think both schools would have been great, so at this point I’m just so relieved the decision is done and we can start imagining the future.
Thank you! @Clara30 for maintaining the thread this year, all the acceptance threads on this forum truly helped us as we devised our list or were wondering when an acceptance would come out, etc. and hopefully this will help others in the future.
Flyerette’s daughter – (Undergrad) Viola Performance BM unless otherwise noted:
Louisville – Accepted to school 10/29, to music 3/5, $10K + reciprocity
Ball State – Accepted to school 11/4, to music 2/6, $5K + reciprocity
U of Dayton – Accepted to school 11/22, to music 2/26, $36.3K
Belmont (Music Business, no audition) – Accepted 11/24, $25K
UNT – Accepted to school 11/18, to music 3/4, $0
The OSU – Accepted to music 12/12, to school 12/14, $6.9K
IU Jacobs – Accepted to music 2/10, to school 2/18, $25k
UC CCM – Accepted 2/24, $1k
UMich SMTD – Accepted 2/28, $41.8K
DePaul – Accepted 3/10, $28K
JMU – Accepted 3/12, $9.5K
Syracuse (Music Industry, video audition) – Accepted 3/21, $62.1K
Vanderbilt Blair – Waitlisted 3/26
Eastman – Accepted 3/27, $43.5K
MSM – Accepted 3/28, $25K
MSU – Application withdrawn before audition
Northwestern Bienen – Denied at prescreen 12/19
BU – Denied after audition 3/22
Oberlin – Denied after audition 3/22
NYU Steinhardt – Denied after audition 3/26
Juilliard – Denied after audition 3/31
Thank you! She’s really excited, and I’m excited for her! We officially accepted this afternoon about 3pm.
And then…in a twist none of us saw coming, we got an email from Eastman tonight (decision day!!!) at 7pm (8pm their time) offering an additional $10k. Talk about coming in at the 11th hour! My daughter’s response was “you have GOT to be kidding me.” I think she had officially declined and everything, but the teacher advocated for her today, and I guess they reconsidered.
We had a few minutes of uncertainty because the two programs were pretty much even on her preference list, and she liked very specific things about each school more than the other. But she ultimately decided to stick with Oberlin
Thanks for mentioning the FB parents’ page. I just went over and joined!
Ok, that is NUTS! But also kind of awesome. Eastman (and all the others) can stay on her grad school list…!
Congrats to all for getting to 5/1!
Dear all, I just wanted to update anyone on this thread or last year’s regarding my daughter’s graduate program applications journey.
Some context: DD graduated in May 2023 with a BA from Luther College in Iowa (in my humble opinion, a truly wonderful small LAC school with a great music program). Her major was music with a double concentration in voice and cello. She sang in two operas, as well as two opera scenes courses, and was first chair in cello her last two years. The community was supportive and music feels like the heart of the institution with many non-majors and majors participating and outstanding and warm faculty mentors.
I suppose next steps were maybe less emphasized than they might have been at a conservatory but overall the experience was an excellent one for my daughter.
Following graduation, she stayed in the college town, during a kind of gap year experience, continuing to support the music department in chamber ensembles for recitals or accompanist roles, taking some lessons with her former faculty, and working in area businesses and giving lessons herself. After Covid and other major events in her life, this was a great respite.
The following April she found a job in the Twin Cities as cello sales consultant so she moved to the big city of Minneapolis. She had applied to grad vocal programs (during senior year getting to auditions at NEC and being accepted at Indiana, and the second year auditioning at the institutions of two faculty members from the Atlantic Music Festival Vocal Institute but ultimately not being accepted) but she decided to stay in the Twin Cities where her bf also lived who was just out of college.
She ultimately left the sales consultant job at the string shop the following February, not happy with retail and with the toxic work atmosphere at the particular shop. She had applied that winter to two institutions to which she had connections, one due to having attended VOX Opera in Worcester,MA, the previous summer: Hartt Conservatory at University of Hartford, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville—she was admitted to both programs.
DD received a scholarship to Hartt that was not quite at the level she needed so she negotiated for a higher award and received that from the department head. Ever since she committed to the program, she has been actively working with her new voice faculty mentor! She attended VOX Opera (a week-long role study) again this summer (studying Mimi in La Boheme), and will move to Hartford in just a couple weeks!
It has been instructive for me as a mom to see my DD make her decisions in her own way, and to see the amazing attention she has been receiving, and her growth over summer already, as well as the commitment my DD has to her upcoming MM studies: truly breathtaking and wonderful! I could not be happier for her to have found such a supportive environment in which she feels comfortable growing her skills.
I hope this provides another perspective on the journey. Everyone truly has to make this journey their own and I have loved being able to hear the resulting wonderful music!
Best wishes to you all (parent of ‘27 Hartt MM in Vocal Performance candidate).