My now college freshman son is a music major (applied as vocal performance) at Syracuse. It was a complex situation as added to the academic and musically admissions process, I work at a college and was trying to use my employer benefit of Tuition Exchange which is very competitive as well. I think in the end he applied to 17 schools.
He was thankful to get into Jacobs (Indiana) but sadly the money did not make it affordable for us. He had great respect for Baldwin Wallace but felt the college was too small. He loved Jacksonville U location but again, felt too small for his personal preferences. All his auditions were recorded or virtual as his senior fall schedule was all about football. We didnt do tours until second semester senior year.
Here is his summary.
College freshman now music major but here are his stats 3.3 gpa. 35 ACT.
Northern Arizona University. 9k merit. COA 39k
Jacksonville U (FL). 45k Fine Arts and Academic Merit. COA 16k
U of Louisiana Lafayette. 27,696 Live Oak Scholarship. COA 8k
Loyola New Orleans. 32k Esports Scholarship. COA 28k
Stetson- (I think it was half tuition)
Baldwin Wallace- (almost full tuition offer for music talent)
DePaul- 34k merit given. COA 21k
U North Florida (likely 12k off)
Xavier (OH). 25k merit. COA 33k
Gustavus Adolphus. 40k ish music/academic merit. COA 24k
Ball State. MSEP tuition. COA 25k
U of Dayton. 24k academic merit. 4500 Music merit. COA 35k
Western Michigan. 2k merit. COA 29k
U of Minn-Twin Cities. k4 merit. COA 24K
Syracuse- given half tuition merit for academic and music talent.
Indiana U- 7K music merit.
U of South Alabama-accepted (did not do financials)
We are blessed he was awarded Tuition Exchange (my employer benefit) plus stacked an additional scholarship resulting in free tuition at Syracuse. A visit on admitted students day sold it for him. Along with loving the school spirit he was able to hear the top level choir perform and he was impressed. The top level choir travels too so that had him excited as well. He is loving his school choice thus far.
Thank you for sharing your Sās experience! I remember his ājourneyā from last year. I think your post shares some wisdom. As I like to give unsolicited advice, I think your post shows these important points:
Edit: for clarity, Iām using the post as a āspring boardā for opinions about this process, NOT to comment specifically on this particular studentās situation.
For tuition, you may want to target in-state tuition. There were some large difference in offers - $20K on the low end with $40K on the high endā¦with free tuition too! He did have a nice ACT score that may have helped with that and being a male vocalist always sparks interest (particularly at some schools). A female VP soprano with a solid test score (but not high) at selective schools may want to consider in-state tuition as a bench mark. Instrumentalist (playing since 5 years old) may get the elusive full tuition at a selective school. It can be harder for vocalists (who are younger in their music development). I write this just to point out the many variations in scholarships for UG. Itās hard to look at one musician and think the same will happen for yours. BUT you can look at some general trends. These comments are outside of financial aid which of course will help some to really lower tuition.
Most students do āforgetā about the other schools (rejected from or too expensive) once they get to their school. They get too busy to think about what seemed so important last March. And thank you for pointing out in one of your posts how busy he isā¦making it difficult to explore. Performance degrees are very time intensive. The ājack of all tradesā high school student may be surprised by the time commitment of a music degree.
Most students continue to grow and develop their musical interests once they hit college. So having a program with variety and flexibility is never a bad idea. Looking at the schools extracurricular activities and other music classes (or non-music) can be important.
The teacher and the schoolās reputation are important. Often people will say itās all about the teacher (and maybe so for some instrumentalists). However, I think that the āenvironmentā is really important too. Your kid will need to be happy on campus with a peer group sharing similar interests in order to grow. So itās best to keep an open mind during this process and not focus too hard on a ādream schoolā. Sometimes it takes the WHOLE process (which may include rejections or meager scholarships) to realize thatā¦another school really holds all your dreamsā¦and you just didnāt realize it untilā¦March or April.
Iām looking at flights to Appleton for DSās Lawrence audition, andā¦I think maybe thatās going to have to be a virtual audition. I definitely donāt remember them being so expensive two years ago when his brother applied! I canāt find anything under $600ish round tripā¦so weād be looking at $1200 for him and his Dad to fly, plus a hotel, plus checking the horn, likely. Heās seen the campus before, since we visited with his brother, but heād really like to meet the horn prof in person.
I am getting a little worried about how close to audition dates we may get pre screen results, and the impact on flight costs; i think DD will need to do some virtually if she gets through but sort of need all the results in to work out how/whichā¦
I was looking at thatāif he ends up going in person, thatās probably what weāll do. But Iām still kind of leaning virtual audition and then a visit later on when heās making decisions (assuming he gets in and the FA is workable). There could be an awful lot of visits to try to fit in in April depending on where else he gets in, though!
I donāt know if this works for your son, but mine did all of his auditions without a parent. Saved a lot on flight costs. But mainly he preferred to go by himself as he felt he was more confident and performed better on his own.
I was his travel agent and personal assistant from afar.
Heās flown by himself before, but heād definitely prefer to have someone with him. And that wouldnāt save much money over flying into Milwaukee anyway (which he couldnāt do on his own, since he canāt rent a car himself), since flights to there are half as much. Did you not run into any issues with hotels letting him stay?
For a couple of his auditions he was able to stay with a friend in the dorm. He attended a performing arts HS so knew students who had graduated from his HS the year before.
For two auditions I was able to book him under my account through Airbnb. I explained the scenario to the host and they graciously accepted a 17 year old aspiring musician.
100% the fact he is male with a deep voice (and 35 ACT) helped him tremendously!
He refused to stay in Wisconsin (he toured Lawrence) and didnt apply to Madison as he didnt think he would get in (and he knows too many kids there).
He has actually switched to music industry so he can perform and take more electives in the business aspect (along with sound recording technology). He still loves performance and his vocal classes and still needs to be in a large ensemble. The performance major was just really jam packed and didnt leave him time for exploring.
I do a lot of driving to avoid flying, but this is 900 miles each way, and we really need to only be gone for the weekend, so itās not really an option. We did drive to Appleton when my last kid was considering Lawrence, but as part of a week long spring break trip where we hit Oberlin and Baldwin Wallace, too.
Some schools will allow you to find a special audition date (on days when auditions were not even scheduled). Two schools allowed my DD to do that last year. She was actually the very first person to audition for voice at Bard Conservatory last winter. They had an awesome accompanist for her and the two of them worked together on her pieces for about 15 minutes in the practice room before her audition. I think she was permitted this extra time because no other auditions had been scheduled for that day.
There are some schools we just didnāt get around to sending pre screens toā¦. One example is oberlin. Initially we felt it was too remote for her. If D24 goes there but not for music, can she audition while she is there? How involved can someone become in the music program if not admitted to that school initially?
Our friends D is an English major at Oberlin and sings in multiple groups including with a chorus that performed at Carnegie Hall. They have been very happy with the opportunities in music that she has had without being a music major.
Oh thatās reassuring. I guess I was also wondering if she could still join conservatory or minor or major in music. If we had applied in time, thatās what she would have done.
Definitely agree about the environment being almost as important as the teacher! My son is an instrumentalist so teacher was most important to him, but he ended up weighing the environment and overall musical excellence almost as high. Although he was offered the most money at Bienen (he could have gone for free) he ended up at Shepherd and the thing that tipped the scale was an orchestra rehearsal we sat in on where they āread throughā some complex piece and it sounded 10x better than our local professional orchestraā¦ we were blown away (at NU/Bienen, orchestra is not even required for music majors. )
It is crazy how expensive it can get. Weāre in the āstringsā world and most families we knew seemed to be wealthy enough to do ātoursā in the fall and then auditions in the spring at about $10k each time. We told our son we couldnāt do the fall tours, and he only applied to four schools. Of those, he did three auditions in person that we piggy-backed over the span of a week. The fourth audition was an outlier with its date so he did a video audition. In the end, he was accepted to all four with great financial aid, and I am not sure how he would have made the decision had he not gone in person. Although the one he did the video audition for offered him the most money (NU), he crossed it off the list immediately, because not having been there in person just didnāt sell it to him (it had also been his last choice); the three that were left were all very good and he made lengthy pro/con lists and in the end, the things that sold him were all things that pertained to his experiences there in person. I am glad we ābit the bulletā and just did it, even though I was paying off our credit card bill for a while. Just tell yourself it will be worth it in the end because of how much scholarship money they get Definitely saved on that end of things for my son! Maybe have your student pick his top choices and just do those in person.
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