Congratulations!
Nothing in my DD’s Eastman portal yet, either. It could be instrument specific, but I sure do wish they would send it! It’s in her top 2, and her other top choice, Oberlin, sent acceptance and financial package over the weekend. We’re dying to see how the two compare.
My husband and I are both classical vocalists (he’s a tenor, I’m a soprano). We both come from musical families, although his family leaned toward folk/country/gospel, while I had a grandmother on one side who was classically trained and a great grandmother on the other who sang professionally at the turn of the 20th century (I have an old program cover from one of her recitals, which is really cool). DH and I met in college - he was a music ed major, and I was VP/music business. Once he started his student teaching and made a kid cry, he decided that music ed is not the life for him, so he started working with computers, which don’t talk back, cry, or whine, LOL (they also pay the bills 
better than teaching or gigging ever could). I tried to get a job in music business, but it was a super new field at the time, and no one really knew what it was. The few jobs I found were unpaid internships, one of which would have required 22-year-old me to tear down concert equipment alone in a dark park in the middle of Fort Worth, TX late at night after symphony in the park performances, so that was an immediate no from me. I ended up working as an executive assistant and then took time off to raise the girls. I’m now back to doing EA work and working in HR.
We have both stayed very active with singing, though. We sing and solo with church/community choruses, sing at dinners, weddings, funerals, a little musical theater here and there, etc. Our girls have grown up around music, and they’re all very musical. Our oldest could have been a voice major but chose computers like her dad. Our middle (current senior) has developed this rich, velvety mezzo voice and is 1000x better than I ever hoped to be in high school. She also has the stubbornness and drive to make it through the whole “starving artist” thing that I didn’t want to go through out of college. Our youngest has a lovely voice but has chosen to pursue other interests in high school and has landed in tech theater/lighting and loves it. All three girls inherited their dad’s perfect pitch, which is completely unfair and has not rubbed off on me despite my hoping it would for the last 28 years.
I’ll admit I’m living vicariously (just a little bit!) through my middle daughter. My dream was to go to Juilliard (because that’s the one we had all heard of in 1993 when there was no Google, LOL), but my parents laughed and laughed when I told them that and then encouraged me to choose something realistic and closer to home. My daughter just auditioned and got a callback at Juilliard a couple of weeks ago. It’s not her #1 choice for undergrad, but she has a very real chance of getting in, and she does aspire to go there for grad school, so it’s great that she’s already made a few connections there.
So, that’s a novel you didn’t ask for, but it’s fun to read through everyone else’s music backgrounds. While we’ve definitely nurtured our girls’ talent since they were very young, it’s fascinating to me to learn all the different paths kids take and how some kids’ musical talent just comes out of nowhere!
That’s wonderful and very exciting for your daughter (and you as parents)!! It’s a such a talented group and wonderful studio. My son loves it there and he looks forward to meeting her and the other new admits. Let us know if you have any questions.
Thank you. My DD is excited. She is assigned to Prof. Zalkind’s studio. However, among the 4 schools she applied, Eastman has come out to be the least affordable 
. We have to do a lot of thinking now.
Ugh, I’m sorry to hear that, I know these decisions are so hard and of course, financials play such a big part. Best of luck to you guys with your decisions, that is my son’s teacher as well so if she has any questions, feel free to reach out.
That’s fantastic for her! What options does she get to choose from? Has she heard from all her schools yet?
Anyone here get merit from CCM? My son did, but we cannot locate the information. Did it come in UC email? He cannot get into it if it went there. CCM is way more affordable than I initially thought because of the 2 scholarships he got from the university as well. Just trying to get all the documentation together and we cant find CCM merit, help please!
Also merit from IU came today. Is the most expensive option. I think son wants to negotiate.
Our son’s CCM merit came in email (I haven’t found it on the portal). It came to the same email he used when applying, so his personal email, not a university email. If it helps, it came from “University of Cincinnati, Financial Aid” and the Subject was “You’ve earned a scholarship!”. Ours was sent on Thursday, 3/20, which I think was a couple of weeks after we got the acceptance notification (that came on 3/3 I think). I hope this helps!
She has been accepted to Bard, BU, Oberlin and Eastman.
Thank you!
Sadly, that email was about the Cincinnatus and National Outreach Scholarships, not the CCM award
Bummer! Hopefully someone else on here can help then.
My husband and I have both been involved in music (he plays basic guitar, I was in choirs and took basic piano), but my son was born a musician. I have cousins and grandparents that were and are musicians.
I knew enough about music to know that my son was naturally capable and drawn to music, and we’ve tried to provide him with opportunities to learn and grow, but I know we missed a lot of things because of our lack of knowledge of strings in particular and the music world in general. I am extremely grateful for the support and mentorship he has received from some of his music teachers and the music school where he studies his main instrument.
congrats!! a huge congrats on the aid at BU! My student only got a small scholarship and with their tuition being what it is, well… i wish it could have been more! i’m so happy for you that you got a large one to make it a possibility!
Don’t see PLU mentioned a lot! We just met a grad student at NYU from PLU. I’d let it drop off my radar with my current student, though we had been there with an older one for music. Good vocal reputation!
what an amazing post. Thank you for all these great insights.
My kids take (took) private lessons from a fabulous piano professor at PLU. And my 15 year old daughter is taking private voice lessons from a wonderful teacher at PLU also! And my 13 year old son will take a few lessons with the oboe professor there. She is incredible! Wonderful professors there!!
CCM merit came in personal email or an email that pointed to the portal, and more recently in snail mail too.
Ok. Haven’t gotten the snail mail. He reached out to them to get it again.
I can so relate to your post, except there is no one with the musical background in our family and our daughter is so incredibly musical. She loves all things music whether it is singing, playing or even musical theater. She begged to learn how to play an instrument when she was seven. she’s the youngest of eight kids and I just didn’t have time. I finally gave in and let her learn how to play violin when she was around 8 1/2 bc she would not stop begging to learn how to play. She is now a ninth grader, and I do worry about the fact that she is behind other kids her age who started at a younger age and have parents who have some clue about what they’re doing. But, all we can do is proceed forward from where she is. She is determined and doing extremely well. Where she goes, however will be completely determined by finances. Only the future can answer that question. In the meantime, all we can do is make sure she has all the opportunities that are available to her in our life situation.
I hope future applicants scan these threads because I just wanted them to know that BU Boston University DOES not necessarily choose performance majors based on their ability. I found out that my kid (and another kid’s) denials were due to factors beyond the music program. Basically, the profs chose them for the studio and BU rejected them based on some type of academic factors or application factors beyond music (my kid has a 4.2 GPA but slightly less rigorous schedule than a typical BU applicant due to absolutely valid factors that they probably didn’t even take the time to look at).
I’ve seen threads in the past about how performance majors can get away with having lower academic accolades, but this does not seem to be the case for all schools, which is ridiculous. We also know a kid who was accepted to BU in the same instrument - much lower ability player but 1500+ SAT score… yeah, 1500+ does not make you a more successful performer, so I’d advise applicants in the future to not put much faith or effort into BU unless your academic resume is at the level of the engineering applicants. I’m so mad they had us come to audition in the first place.