So at one point for myself, I was miserable at the private school I was teaching at and tried applying for all Types of jobs, music related and Not. Even went to a Temp agency. I could not even get an interview at anything besides a music teacher job and I have a masters. So in my experience it’s not that easy to translate a BM into other degrees. Real estate maybe yes, I didn’t try that route. I ended up just doing more private teaching so that’s what I’m doing now. I don’t think I will ever be able to retire though, but maybe I would be bored as a retiree. I agree in a way though I want him to have more opportunity than I did, included the best school possible, and do feel like with my past experiences and my husbands, we can steer him into how to make a career work. I believe he can get certified to teach even in an online program or soemthing like this.
Your son is very fortunate to have the benefit of your experience and advice.
His teacher is amazing we are lucky. She was my teacher and my husbands in grad school. I am More like you I want him to go the best school Possible and worry about the rest later. His teacher is more Worried about how he would make a living , given the realities of being a musician and the fact he likely would never get an orchestra job. She kept telling him to major in anything else possible, but eventually realized he won’t change his mind and she also understands the academic issues and that other areas would be hard for him. I just hope he can get in somewhere good and organize himself to do well once he’s there!
@mlucchi sending you a private message (upper right, green envelope).
Those last nine words are doing a lot of heavy lifting! BM programs are demanding and time-consuming - handling additional non-music academics alongside a heavy practice and rehearsal schedule requires time management that’s akin to being an intercollegiate athlete (which is why athletes often have access to additional academic supports).
He has done well in high school because you have been judicious about rigor. You haven’t thrown him into the deep end of AP-track academics at his high school, and that has worked out well. But most of the kids in those AP-track classes still won’t get into colleges like Johns Hopkins or Vanderbilt - maybe not even BU or URochester. Adding an academic emphasis (even if it isn’t a full double-major, which as others have noted is very challenging to do with a BM and likely can’t be done in 4 years) is going to mean diving into academics that are more like the open ocean than the “deep end” of high school. There are many “good colleges” that still aren’t expecting kids to hit the ground running with college-level skills on day one. And if you can find a college with a wrap-around support program (Denver’s is one example but others may exist at schools with conservatory-level music), even better. IMHO, better to set up him for success, and maybe find out that he doesn’t actually need all of the scaffolding that’s available, than to end up scrambling for supports in an academic milieu that requires a huge leap in rigor. Reputation is important, sure, but he also needs not to be spread too thin, and not to be an outlier in terms of preparation and rigor-tolerance.
Again, JMHO, but if he could crack the most competitive schools on this list, the most likely outcome will be that the additional academic focus you’re hoping for won’t happen, and he’ll end up sticking with the conservatory degree only - which is fine if that’s the goal, but then he might as well consider the free-standing conservatories as well.