So many great insights here. In my (pretty inexperienced!) understanding, I can see a difference in a conservatory BM and a university BM where the university might have gen ed requirements outside of the music school. At Wisconsin, for example, BM students have to do the gen ed curriculum for a degree from the College of Letters and Science. I don’t know whether that would really prepare anyone for another profession, but at least the broad requirements are there.
When we toured McGill two weeks ago (where my son was admitted to both the Arts faculty and to the music school), we did both the general university tour and the music school tour in the same day. The music school has very few requirements outside of music–just a few electives here and there. My son’s really not sure what he wants to do in life, but he absolutely lives and loves music, and it was clear on the tour that that’s where he belongs. He might add another major in Arts, which would probably require a fifth year, but the tuition is reasonable, so we’re backing him in his decision. He’s so excited for it! He especially loved that the jazz combos play in a club on Tuesdays for credit, and that music students who have practice-related injuries get the same priority for medical treatment as varsity athletes.
It’s so great to hear about the wonderful choices all these great students have before them!
@Roubaix just want to say that the discussion of alternative undergrad paths in no way contradicts the value and wonderfulness of a BM intensively focused on music. And there will be many career options once finished, inside music and out (if desired).
I don’t want to pull this thread off topic too much, but can someone briefly explain how summer festivals for undergrads “work”? Is this something they will have to pay for, like the high school summer camps? Or, is it more like a summer internship, where they don’t pay to attend, but they don’t really make money?
I’m asking because it’s become a factor in our decision-making. We could spend a LOT (to us) of money to send DS to a conservatory (CIM), but we wouldn’t be able to help him outside of that. Or, he could go to a much less expensive state school, but we would have more resources available to support him - if needed for the summer festivals, or potentially grad school. CIM’s significant tuition increase has led to a lot more stress over DS’s decision. It would have been an easy decision otherwise.
Summer festivals for undergrads are very similar to what your student would have done during high school; most have high fees, but there are some that have huge scholarships or fellowships. Many kids in music come from high-income families so paying the fees are not an issue; for us it always was, so my kids have only ever applied to programs offering large scholarships, or free to admitted participants. It’s a conundrum as it means, if you’re spending your summer at a program, you can’t work over the summer. I’ve always looked at it like an “internship” and part of the training. Programs offering good scholarships include Bowdoin, Heifetz, Aspen, and free (look for “fellowships”) include Colorado Summer Music Festival, Menlo, Yellow Barn, and Kneisel Hall. There are definitely ways to do it but you have to search out the money.
@MommaBerd an important thing to investigate is whether the school will fund summer programs. For composition, many programs tend to be expensive and may include travel to Europe. Some programs/festivals may have financial aid.
There are some programs/festivals that do not cost much, or anything, but I think you can expect expenses so funding by the undergrad school can be an important factor.
My sophomore kid has gone through applying to summer programs twice now, and it’s kind of been all over the map. There are fully funded programs, but those tend to be extremely competitive, for obvious reasons. He’s made it on to waitlists at some of the big free programs, but hasn’t gotten into one yet. Most programs offer some kind of scholarships or need-based aid, but, in our experience, it doesn’t usually cover anywhere near the full cost. His school (Blair) also offers help with paying for summer programs, but it’s tricky because he generally doesn’t hear about that until he’s already had to commit to a program, and the amount awarded has been kind of unpredictable (last year it was a pretty small amount; this year he just texted me last night that they gave him "$2000 more than I was expecting). This is definitely something worth asking potential schools about…Vanderbilt has a lot of money to throw around compared to a lot of schools.
So, in short, it’s definitely something to think about when figuring out costs, but there are ways to make it affordable. We did pay a big chunk of his summer programs last year, but this year we told him we couldn’t do it again and he needed to figure it out for himself. And he is…he’s got some scholarship money from the programs themselves, some money from Blair, and he’s doing the college program at one place and then coming back later to work as a counselor for their younger kids programming. All together, I think he’ll end up doing about 4 weeks of festivals himself and then working another 3ish weeks to help pay for it all. Next year he’s already talking about some program in Europe he wants to do with his reed quintet…we’ll see!
Thank you all for your quick replies. It is unlikely that DS would ever receive any need-based aid. I will have him ask the professors about summer program funding.
Incidentally, I’ve found the need based aid applications at summer music programs surprisingly invasive, and I say that as someone who’s done the CSS profile for 3 kids now. He’s basically been asked to write essays about why he thinks he’s poor enough to need money at a few places.
Love this! One of the GPs in my town got his undergrad degree in saxophone performance. He plays occasionally at a jazz jam here in town and is phenomenal! Doc by day. Saxophonist by night.
I’ve been following along quietly since we closed out the music part of S24’s decisions relatively early on. But just to update, he did really well with his non-auditioned, non-music specific RD schools, and now he has to make the big decision about whether to go somewhere he can do a BM or not (so I’m really appreciating the discussion here about that). Either way, right now he’s leaning toward a double major (or dual degree, depending) in music and maybe English. His top 4 right now are UGA (and the music school there), St. Olaf (he’s been accepted for the BA in performance and would need to audition in for the BM if he wants to do that), Emory, and Amherst College. All very different! He has some other good LAC admits, too, but Amherst and Emory are the ones where the music offerings seem the strongest (they’re also the ones where music faculty have reached out to him and where we’re pretty sure his music supplement was a big factor in admission). A few random thoughts for anyone in the future who’s navigating the BM vs BA dilemma:
*He didn’t pass the prescreen for the con at Oberlin, but he was admitted to the college. He reached out and asked about the musical studies major and was told that musical studies majors have lessons with 4th year con students and some ensembles are open to them. Probably not what he’s looking for, but thought I’d pass it along since I wasn’t able to find a firm answer online anywhere about how lessons and ensembles look for musical studies students
*figuring out which LACs had strong music programs back when he was deciding where to apply was tough. I think I kind of went into things thinking they’d be good enough at any of the top LACs, but there seems to be a huge difference in how seriously different LACs take music and how much they value musicians. And it seemed easier to figure this out after decisions came in…as mentioned, at some schools music faculty reached out to him and/or were super positive and responsive when he reached out to them; at other schools not so much. I won’t call it out, but at one very highly ranked LAC he was admitted to, it took two e-mails to the orchestra director to get a response about sitting in on a rehearsal when he visited, and he never got a response from the applied horn teacher about meeting or having a sample lesson. And when he did go to the rehearsal there was a grand total of one horn (“he was really excited to see me” reports S24). This is a school I think would be a great fit for him academically, but, it turns out, not musically. List building was also tricky because I think this process has clarified how important the music part is to him, even if he doesn’t ultimately end up with a performance degree or a career in music…so some of the schools that made sense back in November don’t anymore.
These are really good points. To add to it, I think the overall “arts culture” when you’re looking at a double major or doing music on the side of another degree, is really crucial. If there’s not excellence there, it’s not going to be that much of a benefit. Emory and Amherst both have strong departments/culture in music and arts. I know everyone says it’s about the teacher and I do agree to a certain point, but we also looked for the overall environment and excellence/quality of the other kids (ie sitting in on orchestra rehearsals at all the schools was a telling component!). Sounds like your son has many amazing choices ahead! My younger son was planning on a double major with Music and Engineering but has opted to just major in Engineering, while doing all the Music classes and ECs that he chooses (he did not want to have to take the required theory and history courses for a major); it’s working really well!
yes! Interestingly, S seems to care more about the quality of the ensembles than about the teacher (of course both are important to him). His older brother, who was dead set on a BM with as little non-music nonsense getting in his way as possible, was the opposite.
@kokotg Oberlin has a reputation for “low wall” between Con and college. Is there a possibility of getting into the Con after a year on campus?
Amherst is in a great area with the other 4 colleges. I would think there would be some great teachers in the community. Williams , Tufts and Wesleyans have good reputations for music as well. Maybe one of those is on his list-? St. Olaf is great too of course.
One LAC offered to find us a teacher.
It does seem like dual degree (or double major, depending on the other major) are good choices for kids like this. I think that the Double Degree Dilemma essay in the Rad Me thread was helpful for clarifying this.
@MommaBerd for composition, summer programs can be a little different. One of the main goals, aside from networking, is to get pieces played at festivals and programs in the summer. Some of the expense is to pay ensembles, though some programs use student musicians. Programs/festivals are all competitive. Several American-run programs are in Europe, increasing expenses.
For composition grad school, you need 3-4 good pieces and resume building can certainly help, as well as meeting potential mentors in the summer. Getting into summer programs is like a preview for grad admission potential. It can be seen as a long term investment making a funded grad program possible!
He didn’t ask about the possibility of auditioning into the con; what I remember from past tours/info sessions is that it is possible…but I don’t know that it’s particularly likely, and I wouldn’t want him to go there if he’d only be happy if that happened.
Amherst has a dedicated horn teacher (I mean, she does other things, too–she’s also at Mt. Holyoke, for example); he’ll meet with her when he visits next week, but we hear very good things. There’s also the option to do lessons or play in ensembles at UMass or the other consortium colleges, which really does seem to set Amherst apart musically in the world of small LACs that often just really don’t have enough students to have super robust music offerings (unless they have a music school, of course). Williams and Wesleyan were on his list, but he didn’t get in.
I never did them as I was from a working class family and just needed to come up with my own spending money. My teacher at MSM David Jolley - world class horn player said I get it I drove a mail truck in the summer - he was at Juilliard. They are nice if you can afford them but not absolutely necessary. In fact I created my own program for kids like myself - I write grants and run a large horn ensemble in the summer - charge $200 for summer. We rehearse once a week at night. I have 30-50! horn players every summer.
