@murray93 … welcome to another clarinet parent! ?? I’ve been reading along for a little over a year, and coming across another clarinet is like spotting a unicorn!
Welcome @murray93
Well, we are Catholic but I would call us “rebellious Catholics” as we disagree with many current teachings and backward thinking. However, we found the perfect place of worship and my family participates in the music ministry and loves it (my husband on mandolin, son on drums and my daughter with vocals.) I’m not musical but I get to enjoy it! We attend services at a very progressive college Newman Center which is welcoming to all and the priest is pretty rebellious (performs Baptisms for gay couples, says nuns would be better than bishops to lead the church, infers priests should be allowed to marry and women should have bigger leadership roles, etc.) So I can tell you that if my daughter got a traditional Catholic vibe from the school, she would NOT have chosen it. It’s a Jesuit school so it’s more about community service, social justice, respect for the environment, etc.-all things my daughter feels religion should center on. Not the judgmental, pointing of fingers stuff! She may not even remain Catholic if things don’t change in a big way, but she likes what our current church stands for and feels that Loyola is very similar, at least that’s the vibe she got. They do have to take a few religion classes but there were interesting choices like “Death and Dying” and “World Religions.” They are ranked #9 for Inclusion so there are students on campus of many faiths including Jewish and Muslim so there doesn’t seem to be Catholic snobbery present-and it’s very diverse in terms of cultures, backgrounds and ethnicity. A diverse, open campus was a “must” for her. She would not even look at Belmont because she heard of a significant conservative presence on campus and it was mostly white kids (80% white compared to 50% at Loyola) but I honestly think it was more of a rumor because I’ve heard the students are quite progressive, especially the music kids at Belmont. But my point is not to let the statues of saints scare them. If my daughter gives it a thumbs up, I’ll bet they would too! It’s a very supportive environment for musicians so if they want more of a competitive environment, there are definitely other schools that would be better. It’s also not known for academic rigor. While challenging, it’s not Miami, NYU or USC. My daughter is a 90 student so will be perfect for her. For some, they might need more intense academics (although they do have an honors programs that could challenge them more.) During class visits and accepted student days my daughter eliminated a few colleges because she would not feel challenged enough in areas of music. But she felt the Loyola program was individualized and allowed for more growth and challenge. She is very talented but didn’t feel she would be the “biggest fish” at Loyola after seeing the talent displayed at Accepted Student weekend, which is what she wanted so she could push herself to higher levels musically.
I know it’s not a big name music college but I feel it has a strong music program, especially for the Popular/Commercial studies my daughter is pursuing (see link below.) A mom of a jazz major told me that they do have big name professors and bring in pretty amazing guest speakers but the professors are more about giving the tools but encouraging that collaboration piece and hands-on experience so they “can use their wings to fly” when they are in the real world. It has been described many times as a “hidden gem” which makes sense based on the enthusiasm my daughter displayed after her visit there. She said it’s very artsy, diverse, friendly, and feels like such a supportive community.
http://cmfa.loyno.edu/famis/popular-commercial-music-bs
I knew they were placed on financial probation for a year (set to end July 2019) based on previous year’s mismanagement. But they seemed to have done what they had to do to balance the budget, including new finance members and a new (female-yay!) president. I hate when cuts have to involve faculty and staff but they seemed to have made the tough decisions without major disruptions to academic quality. I believe the last few years have seen a steady increase in enrollment and accreditation is not in danger so that’s very encouraging. I heard hints they have VERY healthy numbers this year. So my guess is that they will get a clean bill of health in July and the probation will be lifted and hopefully they will continue a little more aware of budgeting constraints. Since I have heard of other reputable colleges that had to deal with that and survived, it wasn’t a major concern. Plus they gave us a ton of scholarship money, even adding money with our appeal, so they can’t be in that much danger, although part of that is thanks to healthy endowments.
Good luck & let me know if you have more questions!
@mom2clarinetobsessedkid Seems like there’s a million of them IRL! My D also doubles on jazz sax and just started trombone this year.
@CindyCV , the Classical Singer competition is a great introduction into the VP world for a singer your son’s age. My son attended and competed in the summer before his senior year in HS. It helped solidify his career choice, and the college expo was a great way to meet college reps and get info about different programs. Highly recommend. In fact, both my son and daughter will be competing in MT and classical this year in Chicago.
Agree with @vistajay 100%. @CindyCV : My D competed twice: as a Junior and Senior in HS and attended both national conventions (one in Boston one in Chicago). It was very useful in junior year as a way to gauge relative talent and to meet faculty and students from many schools. It helped her to solidify where she wanted to apply. Senior year was more for fun, as the scholarships and expo were not relevant once she had committed to college. While you are there you could check out Roosevelt, DePaul and Northwestern campuses too!! D will probably compete if she has time since it is in Chicago but it’s the same weekend as the spring opera, so her schedule is tight!
@murray93 So true!!! ? That’s partly why I figured I’d find many kindred spirits here. If only they were so scarce when it came to music school applications and winning symphony jobs! ?
@Racingfan53 - just got back on-line after a long drive. I am not too familiar with that part of the program, but I know there are some large organs, and there can be plenty of classmates and church settings around.
@jadedheaven, fyi UNT is a highly regarded program for (Progressive, classical and electroacoustic) composition 
Not sure I agree that the CC music major forum focuses only on top schools. I do think that the journey threads are more focused on jazz and popular music than classical.
Many state universities have excellent BM programs in their schools of music and I do think they get discussed.
For those with financial challenges, keeping the list relatively small can help, and visiting only for auditions. Limiting schools to those closer to home, and including the state university or college system helps too. Some freestanding conservatories with top reputations, do not give a lot of financial aid, it is true.
Students can and do enter the best grad programs from all kinds of backgrounds and programs.
Bumping this thread back up so that newbies can find it and won’t start another one. I’m noticing lots of people starting new threads when there are already existing threads (e.g. Interlochen uniforms).
Again, looking forward to sharing the journey with everyone here Grateful to be performing Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with some wonderful musicians this week. It’s really getting me in the mood and excited to go to music school next fall!!
I sometimes get slammed for this, but I would encourage people to do new, separate threads so that everything isn’t buried in hundreds of pages of a “journey” thread. The “journey” threads started two years ago after Go Forth’s journal, and they are wonderful communities of support and info. But for particular topics and questions, separate threads can be helpful and also access advice from the larger CC music major community. (Even if there are duplicate threads at times!)
Also I wonder if there could be separate “journey” threads for classical, jazz and contemporary, since in past years classical musicians and parents have not participated as much.
@bridgenail @GoForth LOL
My brain is usually happy if I can look at something as a two-dimensional plane/array/graph/matrix. And that is what I see here. We have on the one hand (X axis, traditional style) threads of thought that weave their way through time, such as “Is Frost affordable”, “How do I know how good I am”, “How professional should my audition recording be.” Then on the Y axis, journey style ( I would call it the cohort style), we have each cohort - what are the 2022 folks doing; what are the 2023 folks doing; what did the 2020 folks do? Normally, this is where you wish you had a database lookup, so you could easily view the information space from either point of view.
My journal thread actually was meant to be more of a traditional style post where the topic was - here is what a single example of a multi-year experience was. I thought it would be cool to see a few other single-user journals develop over time so that future readers could see some example stories, not unlike the stories in the Double Degree Dilema, where you could see that Student X went through this, and Student Y had this turn of events after their initial preparations, and such. Up to that point, I had no sense of what happened to students after their college admission. My question was whether their preparations were correct; how did it work out; were all of those festivals helpful to you upon college graduation; did you regret not coming in with enough theory knowledge or did it work out OK. I wanted the journal to show the continuation, the impacts of the preparations, though just through one example that I could offer.
The journey style thread then emerged. It seemed to me more like any group chat you may be familiar with. An emphasis on what is happening now, or, better than a normal group chat, what was happening at this time last year. The journey style thread is great for moral support as the cohort moves along. Whereas, the tradtional style is great for capturing topics that are likely to emerge for any/all cohorts.
I have a high degree of confidence in others to do what’s best for themselves in information gathering. Everyone has a different brain/personality so I think each person should choose what works for them…be it journey threads, individual threads and/or lurking. It’s all good to me. I’m just glad people find a way to participate and be supportive.
Hello everyone, I don’t know whether I belong here so a bit hesitant in posting/asking questions. DS20 loves (classical) music but is mainly applying to strong academic colleges also with strong music program (planning to double major math/music). To make matter more complicated, he is also a year-round swimmer and swimming opportunities also need to be considered.
DS plays piano and cello, and is composing. We believe he has stronger piano abilities, (though he made to all-state for cello and went to Tanglewood last year for the workshop), he does not want to do music performance or music Ed, he is only interested in composition and/or conducting in college (his reason for doing our city’s youth symphony is to “see/learn” conducting and how he could do better, no other experience with conducting). He learned composition on his own, no teachers and we don’t know the quality of these compositions (piano concertos).
As DS’ parents, we don’t have any experience in music learning and training, we are just classical music lovers. I know I have learned a lot by reading many posts here and would like to share our journey along the way.
Welcome @makemesmart !!! Glad to have you here as it sounds like we will get along well. I too am a rising senior (graduating spring 2020) who is interested in a double major in math and music. My #1 goal is strong music program, with strong academics being secondary, but USC is currently my top choice… Huge reach, but I’m shooting my shot, because what the heck.
What schools is your S looking at?
Welcome @makemesmart ! Wow, that is a lot for your S. Kudos to him for forging ahead with a triple focus - academics, music (and 2 instruments!), and sports. Hard enough to focus on one of those, speaking for myself. My kids (bassoonist who’s going into music; the other, a jazz trumpet player who’s not going into music but just loves playing) had to sacrifice sports pretty early on (end of freshman year- beginning soph yr). And they were really good in their sports. I see my S20 practicing less and less to meet the demands of his full IB coursework, even as he was supposed to be getting ready for State solo/ensemble. I know he’s narrowing his options for music schools, but I keep trying to remind myself that this is his journey. Really hard to do at times, esp as I think about the music focus that will be required going into audition season. For this and many other reasons, I look forward to going through this journey with you and everyone else!
@Racingfan53
I have read great things about USC and good luck with your journey! I am all for aiming high with good safeties!
DS is looking at LACs mainly currently. He does not yet have a top choice, his super (super!) reach is Yale’s BA+MM program 
it looks so good yet so unreachable. Haha.
@Busy_Momma
Wow, you. Are. A. Busy. Mama!
DS20 is my only one going through this crazy process so I am learning as we speak. I am afraid that DS is spreading thin without doing anything well! There is only that many hours in a day. But at least kiddo is learning to manage his time well. I am sure our kids will all find a good place for them to grow, and will enjoy (as much as I can) this process (no matter how hectic it becomes).
@makemesmart, one of S’s senior classmates is actually going to Yale BA/MM program next year for violin performance. Have you visited there? I just wonder how the music environment vs. the rest of the school is. Well, we have to wait on the SAT results before we even entertain that one. I do like how the 5th year tuition for the Master’s is free!
@Busy_Momma
I know right! We don’t hear about “free-tuition” much these days! Lol. We haven’t toured Yale for college-purposes. It is a
Pipe-dream, but DS is pretty motivated.