Hi! My advice would be to set a goal date for the academic applications to be completed and then a goal date for the prescreens and music program applications to be completed. Actually the first thing should be securing the teacher recommendations/references. Here were my son’s goal dates:
Academic applications complete and submitted by end of fall break. Music applications and prescreens completed and submitted by end of Thanksgiving Break. He was able to chill a bit and really put in awesome practice time over Christmas Break. His first audition was mid January. January-May were extremely busy with auditions, all-state, solo and ensemble competitions, etc. All worth it, I’m really going to miss that now that he is away at school managing all this!
Although I have gone through the college app process once with my first kid, the music stuff is all new to me. I have a rising senior double bass player and we’re still stumbling along trying to figure out how the music application process works. Assuming IU is Indiana University, I thought the applications opened on Sept 1. Am I already missing something?! 
You are correct, but the application to IU itself opened Aug. 1. You need to apply to the university first, then the Jacobs School of Music.
Thanks - having 2 separate applications/deadlines to track for each college is definitely new to me! This page, though, says the applications open on Sept 1: Undergraduate: How to Apply: Admissions: Jacobs School of Music: Indiana University Bloomington. It doesn’t really matter since my son is likely to wait until Nov 1 no matter how early he can get started, I’m just trying to learn about how this all works so I don’t miss anything!
EDIT: Oh! I just realized that page I linked is the Jacobs school of music page! Because it said “Step 1: Apply to IU” I thought the date of Sept 1 applied to step 1. So the IU applications must have opened Aug 1, but the Jacob applications open Sept 1. I’m getting it. Slowly :).
Back when my son applied, he put together a spreadsheet with all pertinent information and deadlines.
Application materials including letters of recommendation, essays, etc.
Music related materials including resumes, repertoire listings as these overlap but can be different from one program to another.
Pre screen recordings requirements, especially accompanied versus unaccompanied and recording submission due date. Again there is often overlap, but some programs especially certain conservatories can be quite specific.
Once his pre screen results were in, he added audition dates, audition rep and then the crazy travel part. I became his travel agent at that point. 
Every kid is different, so I recommend you and your musician plan the timeline accordingly. My son is quite organized, but also is one who would tend to continue recordings in search of the perfect take if allowed. He knows himself so set hard deadlines a week or more before recording submissions were due to upload. It is a learning process for sure, but in my experience, having my son develop and own his timeline and process worked really well.
Edited to add:
By the way, I don’t recall my son doing anything but finalizing his repertoire and practicing like crazy through the summer before senior year. So you are certainly not in any way behind on a timeline for administrative stuff.
Thanks @anotheroboemom. We have a spreadsheet going and a list of the prescreen requirements, and my son is working towards those deadlines with his practicing. I just got nervous seeing that we had a date wrong already. From what I’ve read here, he’s going to need to submit the academic applications even earlier than posted in some cases so that he has turnaround time for getting portal access etc. for the follow-up music portions. I’m so glad for this forum so we can learn things like that!
This is my first time helping a child with music school, too. S25 still has not received a portal link for IU. He has for Belmont, but there is not presceen there, just the audition. Once he had his Belmont portal set up, he was able to select his audition date.
Hi, everyone! I come to you from the Class of '28 thread! Just wanted to say hello and wish you and your student well on this adventure. These threads were all so helpful to me as I worked with my daughter navigating prescreens, auditions and acceptances. I met some wonderful people on this thread and connected with a few in real life as our students landed at schools together. I look forward to hearing all about your journeys and helping if I can. My daughter is a percussionist at UMich now.
I have a question. Do you have to apply to the school and finalize essays and the application at the same time as you are sending prescreens? Or can you send prescreens and if asked to audition, then you can work on common app to do the rest of the application?
My daughter applied to UMich, Michigan State, Indiana and Eastman for reference. Typically, the apps have to go first and then prescreens. UMich had both due on the same day. I suppose it really depends on the schools’ due dates. She didn’t really bother applying ED for anything either. Daughter got the apps frontloaded and done and then worried about uploading her prescreens. She had to be academically accepted by the school first before she learned if she passed her prescreens and was invited to audition. Although, I do remember one school (not sure which) where she passed prescreen but couldn’t schedule an audition until the school accepted her. Things can always change and others may have different experiences with different schools, but this was our experience last cycle. But, to circle back to the last part of your question, daughter had to have common app done before prescreens.
This is very helpful. This essentially moves the deadlines a month earlier if mine decides to pursue audition based programs. 
the number of essays required by some schools is just overwhelming.
This is OPINION…but I would not sweat the essays too much…particularly the short ones. I remember neighbor parents telling me how they hired consultants and spent weeks or months developing the perfect essays. That did not happen at our house. The time was spent on audition prep. Sure, you should do a good essay…make sure their our no grammatical errors etc (lol…I acutally wrote that originally). There was a lot of “cut and pasting” for the short ones by my D. To this day, I wonder if some of them were ever read.
Audition is KING. That is where the time and effort should go. Everything else, in my opinion, just needs to be neat and complete…and a little thoughtful. Then move on to practice, practice, practice.
Also a bass parent who went though the process last year… I think I already blocked it out! It was difficult and we did a lot of checking and double checking of dates and deadlines. Not sure I can answer any specific qs but feel free to get in touch!
I went through and read most of the thread from last year and followed your journey! It was super helpful. Congrats to your daughter for so many excellent acceptances! She must be starting at Julliard this fall - enjoy the new adventure for all of you!
I’m starting to get a feel for how this works as a music applicant instead of engineering which is what we did last time through. I have a ton of questions, but I’m trying to keep reading first before I bombard this thread with them. One specific question for you, though. Did you fly with the bass? We’ve never done that and are wondering if we should should be buying a travel case or just borrowing/renting basses at each school. We’re in WA state and most of the schools we’re looking at are out East. My husband and I both played string instruments growing up (not music majors) and I can’t imagine ever doing an audition on an instrument that wasn’t mine. But I’ve read online that that’s maybe a thing for bassists?
Also, it feels presumptuous to even be worried about in-person auditions. Our son’s interest in double bass is somewhat new, and he hasn’t done all the summer programs and master classes I read about here. No idea if he’s going to be able to pass the prescreens. We do have a solid private teacher (as of May) who is working to help us through the prep for this.
Be sure to check guidelines on when the applications need to be in to be considered for scholarships (I think Nov 1st). This is the deadline we worked toward for application and then prescreens were added by whatever deadline for each school that was.
This is a very old thread (2007 - which honestly feels like just last week) but the title is “Flying With a Bass”!
Yes, very helpful! So it sounds like that given that it takes a few days for the music school portal to open up (as discussed above), for schools that have the same date for music + academic deadlines, you can’t wait to submit the academic application on the deadline because then the music school portal won’t open in time for you to submit the prescreen by the deadline. (Not that one should wait, but you know, just mentally playing it out in my head ^^.)
My D just started at Juilliard! So far so good, and “soooo different from regular school” she says!
re: flying with the bass, we only did once, from Chicago to LA. We rented a flight case from a local string shop. It was huge. We did XL Ubers to and from the airports. We flew Southwest, and it was $125 to check each way.
We were going to fly for East Coast auditions but decided to drive because that flight case was hard to handle and added a lot of extra expense. With you in Washington that will be a tough decision. I learned that a lot of bassists just suck it up and drive, like bass student we met from the East Coast who drove to ohio one weekend, back hom, then Evanston, IL the next. Renting can be a real crap-shoot, and it’s good to be comfortable with your instruments.
Each school is different. Many did require the whole app and then the prescreens and the deadlines were all different. For some schools the deadlines for the app and scholarship applications were before the prescreen deadline (Vanderbilt was the big one) and others the prescreen was due first
Agreed. However, while there’s no doubt that the audition is key in acceptance for a performance degree as well as in determining merit awards, an important essay that should receive a little more attention is the “why our school” essay. The more specific you can be with this the better. In fact, for some of my daughters acceptances, she was awarded pretty substantial grant money simply because she demonstrated very strong reasons for wanting to be on that campus. Her “why” essay would mainly focus on the studio faculty at that particular school, and what she felt they had to offer her. She did her research and talked about where the faculty had studied and how that would impact her own education. I don’t think that you need to hire $1 billion consultant to do any essay writing for you, but sometimes that one essay can be a factor. Towards the end of the process, when you go back to schools to appeal or request more money, the essay will go a long way in showing the student is a serious candidate who plans to make full use of the opportunities given to them on campus. Please note that not all schools require this type of “why” essay. Fortunately, common app is pretty conducive to reusing written pieces across schools with the exception of essay questions specific to the school.