We got it yesterday. Same. First choice. I am debating where to book. Ideally I would love a hotel close enough to walk to the audition.
Rice I believe had deals with local hotels nearby. The closest I know of is the hospital district, that is close by. The other option might be Air Bnb for something in Rice Village, which is right there.
One thing for everyone dealing with pre screens and then auditions, the one thing looking back and seeing what the reality of the music world is, is that you cannot take anything from any particular result. Sometimes results seem almost to be random, and in some ways they are, it can depend on who for example is listening to a pre screen, it can depend on the style of the kid sending it in, it can be influenced if someone is feeling in a pissy mood. With pre screens, they may be severely limiting auditions that year because they don’t have many open slots, so you might say “well, X got to audition there last year, and my kid was more advanced”. That could be very well true, but the prior year may have auditioned a lot more kids, you don’t know. When my son applied to Juilliard pre college on violin, they had severely cut back on the size they were admitting at the time, his first year they took 6 violins, the next year like 8, and the year he got in, 10 (later on it opened up a lot more) and they had like 100 or more kids auditioning.
You get an audition panel that on violin has teachers who are franco-belgium style, and the kid is playing Russian style, might not get in, yet they get into a program like let’s say Curtis that is incredibly tough to get into.
There is so much in music like this, this is not science or even logical a lot of the time, because it relies on so many factors. It is why when you hear “You have to do X to make it into a good music school” it has caveats on it. Some kids think because they attend Curtis or Juilliard their path is assured, and then find out that both are great music schools, they had the talent to go there, but it isn’t the golden ticket either. Obviously networking when you attend a school help, while no guarantee, going to Curtis is sort of an easier path to get into the Philadelphia orchestra because there are close ties there (it isn’t necessarily bias or old boy network, it is that the kids training is such that it makes them a fit for the sound).
So if they get rejected, don’t think they aren’t good enough, it could be more like they had a bad audition or the school was only taking 1 of their type of instrument and auditioned 30, or no teacher wanted to teach the kid because of stylistic differences, not ability. It is what makes this so hard. My son’s group did really well in competitions, won a number of high level competitions, did really well in others. They did a competition in Australia and didn’t even get out of the first round, which shocked a lot of the other groups (likely it was the jury that was chosen and their own preferences for performance style differed from the way my son’s group performs).
Obviously if you are getting rejected from all the top programs, there could be issues, but if you apply to let’s say 2 of the top programs (use Juilliard and Curtis let’s say) only, and you get rejected, it may be you chose two of the more difficult programs to get into with incredible competition, where the odds were incredibly stacked against you to start with, no matter how good you are.
Music is a world where to be honest, there are times where failures however you define them are going to be overwhelming the successes. Orchestra auditions are like that, it can take years to get into a particular orchestra, or into a top level orchestra, because there is so much competition. People who later succeed have stories of rejections, people who my son looked up to growing up that he now knows and has talked to, talk about the often hard path they faced. Soloists on the violin spend years and years grinding through, even the people that win one of the major competitions, before they (if they are so lucky) become someone playing with the big orchestras (on violin, that is a relatively tiny handful of performers, and breaking into that is extremely difficult).
Not citing sunshine and roses either, if you are auditioning to a number of top level programs and get rejected from all of them, that could indicate issues with your playing (it is where a knowledgeable teacher and also being around peers at the high level are huge, you will know long before auditions where you are). If you form a group and you can’t seem to get traction, it means you may be going about things wrong and try and figure out why, get others to give critiques.
I would add a couple of things. Summer festivals really help with networking (and meeting mentors for grad work). And from what I have seen, students in top/excellent grad programs come from all kinds of undergrad schools and backgrounds.
Reading this thread every year I always wonder what the envisioned end goal is for young musicians here. @old_music_prnt mentioned orchestras several times. Is that the path most are hoping for? Just curious. Perhaps that would make a good separate thread!
I think the question about end goal matters a lot. For my kid, yes, it’s a major orchestral job. However, they would not be pursuing a performance degree unless they knew they were able to compete at the highest level. Festivals, competitions, masterclasses, videos on Youtube/Insta. ,etc. are super important to help a kid know if they are actually on the right path to compete for jobs like that. Basically, find a few people in your instrument who have won jobs recently, figure out what they did as high schoolers/early college, and do the same thing. If you can’t audition into those same programs or if your videos don’t sound like theirs when they were your age, then you can still hope for an orchestra job, but I think you also need to be realistic about other options in musical fields as well. These top music conservatories (other than Colburn/Curtis) are expensive and I’m not sure who pays for them. Kids at the actual “top” don’t (or won’t and find a school that will pay) and those not at the top would get a better deal going to a less expensive public school program or mid tier music school that would actually give them more scholarship money.
People do different things and change their minds. I know plenty of kids (few with PHDs from Juilliard in performance) who have thriving careers in non profit administration and who still perform and teach on the side. Some kids will just get performance degrees and move on and do other things. One Juilliard kid we know got an MBA and he spends summer performing at festivals and works a regular job during the year. None regret pouring their energy into music as undergrad. They loved what they did and enjoyed their college years tremendously. Life is unpredictable. You don’t need to know at 18 the answer to all. And some parents don’t mind paying for music degrees. It’s still a college degree.
I don’t think most kids would regret pouring energy into music. Parents maybe (and kids when they get older) might regret having gone into loads of debt for a degree and resulting job that they could have gotten with the same degree from a much more affordable college, which also might have been a fun experience.
That’s why I agree with a previous poster that it’s best to know your level and have realistic goals. I wish more money was available to musicians and that the system was more transparent as to what one’s chances of getting money was before spending thousands on audition trips to schools that won’t give any or much merit aid. I’m not talking need based, but actual merit aid.
Part of why our pre screen list was shorter than seems typical here is that we specifically did not screen at schools that didn’t appear to have generous financial aid. Great schools (like Michigan as an example) cost more than we can afford.
One thing that has been repeated many times through the years in our child’s music program by various in house and visiting musicians is: don’t take on debt for school.
Jazz director at my son’s university “Get into music NOT debt”
How do you find out what schools typically offer as far as merit scholarships? I know Jacobs can be a bit difficult to get merit scholarship becauae it is a large school with a very large music department.
If you go to the music major main page there are posts from the past few years of what schools students were accepted to and the amount of aid they got. I forgot what the title was.
Here is the info from a few years ago
And here is the last updated post from last year’s acceptance thread. It lists scholarship offers. Acceptance Thread for Class of '28 Undergrad/'26 Grad Music Majors - #181 by TigerLily52
My DD has passed the following pre-screenings (viola):
Jacobs,
BU
CIM
SFC
Eastman
Rice rejected her. She is still waiting on CM, Peabody, Bard, and will apply to Western Washington as her in-state option ( where her current teacher teaches at).
I am getting a but concerned that a lot if these schools are considered reach schools. I mean we thought CM and Rice were her only 2 reach schools, but now I am thinking most of these schools are considered reach schools. It is getting very expensive for all the live audition travel plans. I mean ut is still conceivable that she could go to all those live auditions and not pass any of them.
Are there any other schools that are not so well known that she could/should consider applying to late?
Congratulations. That’s a lot of schools!
What is CM?
The cost of travel is insane.
My son has heard this from jazz faculty multiple times, it seems to be a common theme. I think that’s why for jazz, schools like Purchase, William Paterson, Montclair State, City College, and to a lesser extent (money-wise) * edit, (instate for) Jacobs, Boyer, McGill, and Rutgers might be good options with great jazz programs for kids that want to play but maybe not pay (so much). WestConn tuition is similar to Paterson and a kid could study with Jimmy Greene or Bill Charlap!
*edit I definitely mean instate for eligible schools… don’t want to start a whole thing about the cost of college…
CM is Carnegie Mellon
Jacobs for out of state tuition is not reasonable. It is 41K a year!
Just our own experience, my son’s IU Jacobs offer (also OOS) was quite generous. He was offered an academic scholarship stacked with music merit. This was several years ago.
Edited to add: I remember well the anxiety of not knowing how to gauge school selection especially as we were very much chasing merit. We trusted his private teacher who had good knowledge of the programs my son applied to. And I am forever grateful to this teacher.
But it is still very much a leap of faith.
I will say that if your musician has passed a prescreen, they are in the ballpark for that program.
This.
Also, reasonable is definitely relative, probably especially for a mom to five kids. Emphasis on five, lol.