I feel like for schools that accept based on academics AND performance should evaluate and accept/deny on academics FIRST before even inviting kids to audition. Its a huge investment for families to travel to these schools for in person auditions if the student has no chance to get accepted to the base university.
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Sorry they didn’t get accepted to BU. My daughter was accepted and didn’t submit SAT’s and has a 4.2 GPA. She also was excepted to many other prestigious programs so making assumptions on reasons for others acceptance isn’t fair to parents or kids on this thread. Last thing I would do is de-value another students admission that for any variety of reasons did come through for my child.
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I’m not devaluing anyone’s admission. I am warning future applicants that BU may deny objectively more skilled musicians over less skilled ones when both are seeking the same performance degree - not always, but it is possible, because the people making the ultimate decisions have nothing to do with music and don’t appear to understand the relative prestige or difficulty of varying music ECs. I also suggest not submitting the SAT score to BU unless it’s 1500+. Ours was solidly in the range of what BU has accepted in the past based on their data, so we submitted it to show that my kid fell in their range, and that hurt us in the end.
Completely agree! My daughter was also accepted two years ago with a 4.1 and no SAT. Not a music major but still assumptions should not be made as to why or why not someone was accepted. I do think it’s good to be realistic about where you apply both academically and musically. My son had a mix of true safeties, mid range and reaches for his music applications last year. The best lesson we learned is it’s good to diversify as nothing is guaranteed in music admissions!
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My daughter and I visited BU prior to applying. We were told by admissions that they review applicants first to ensure they meet the basic academic requirements BEFORE asking them to audition. Does this limit their pool of applicants to audition, yes but if you’re there to audition it’s based on your musical ability. Who knows what other factors come into play after auditions. So many variables like open spots, instrument need, teacher preferences for candidates etc… it’s a tough business.
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I hear you. My daughter was just got a rejection from NEC. She had the very first audition time and they seemed very disorganized at the time and my daughter thought they looked preoccupied with things while she was performing. This also happened to be the only rejection she received and I truly believe being the 1st audition hurt her chances. So ultimately, you never really know why you get accepted or rejected. If you got an audition then you got the skills to be there. I saw many of the same kids at each of the major schools in the Northeast.
My D(25 viola) just checked her Eastman portal and she has been accepted! So excited. We are now just waiting on Peabody and the rest of the financial packages.
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Being first sucks.
My daughter had two competitions in a row last year where she had to sing first. The first one went ok - she didn’t win the competition, but she did get several great scholarships out of it. The second was kind of a disaster. She was singing in a room that none of the kids had sung in before, and it was not very live, so she said once the sound left her mouth, it was just gone - no reverb, no ambient ring, nothing. It was just kind of muffled and dead, and I could tell from the audience that she felt off about it. And there was a large audience, so that made things even worse. The other kids who were listening had time to adjust their expectations before they sang.
On the flip side, she ended up being the last audition of the whole audition season at Eastman a few weeks ago, and she felt really good about it and got great feedback from the profs who were in the room. I don’t think going last always works in your favor either (sometimes judges are tired, etc - in this case, they were running ahead of schedule and everyone was in a good mood), but first is the worst.
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Man Eastman must be releasing in batches because my son just checked his portal and still nothing…
It must be in batches by instrument. With Jazz separate from classical. We got classical percussion rejection yesterday. (Eastman)
just here to say i hate portals. Son has an ‘update’ and is away and busy so i’m sitting here pondering… oh, for the old days of everyone just getting the mail one time a day! that is all.
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100%
Congratulations! Waiting on Peabody is taking years off my life. . .
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Eastman is driving us crazy. DD has several friends who have heard about their instrument, but nothing yet for voice…
NGL, we have a spreadsheet with all the portal addresses and the passwords. I told him I needed access until we got through all the financial aid stuff, then he can permission me in to the financials and change his passwords!
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Just out of curiousity, how do you know your S and another kid were denied admission based on academics? Did you hear that from the music professors involved, or from someone in the administration/admission department? I would be careful about sources, bc I have heard a lot of ‘it happened because of X’ and I know for a fact that wasn’t true. One of the things I know about BC is that, at least in years past, they wouldn’t audition people whose academics didn’t meet their standards (whatever they were). The other thing is if BC wants top music students, employing the same academic standards they do for the regular college works against that, because of the nature of music students very few of them can be high level and meet the hyper academics. That doesn’t mean someone didn’t have a bug up their tail, or it could also be a diversity thing as well, music schools and music in general have gotten big on that. I am sorry that your son was rejected, that stinks, but I also would be careful from making a broad based assumption that BU is applying academic rigor across the board like that based on individual cases.
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FYI NYU portal is updated, at least for my DS (UG, Music Technology). No email, at least not yet.
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Finally have all the responses in.
Eastman was a no,
Oberlin was a waitlist,
uOttawa was a yes.
Happy with uOttawa as the professor is excellent for his instrument and while the school is large, the music program felt small enough that he won’t get lost in the shuffle.
Happy to be waitlisted at Oberlin too as he really liked the small town and the way the conservatory is integrated with the college, as well as the chamber emphasis.
He planned to take a gap year if none of those worked out, which would also have been okay as he is still young for grade.
So glad to be done with the waiting and wondering and on to making plans!
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i just saw a post on SFCM insta yesterday about collaborative piano, if you want to check it out. and their grad tuition/costs/assistance, may be very different than undergrad, perhaps
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I was told to my face by reps from Frost and Steinhardt that while academics are a major part of the admissions process, the music departments have some ability to go to bat for students who might not meet the typical academic criteria but would be valuable additions to the music program.
But there are bands of talent and academic record there, right?, and if you aren’t in the intersection of the bands, then you don’t make it in. A music program faculty member is only going to stick their neck out so far for ANY student. If the best drummer in the world has a 3.5 weighted gpa and 1150 sat, they’re just probably not going to get into a number of these schools. It’s not like athletes in some programs that get a lot of academic help during their college journey.
We were told by the director of the well known and well regarded jazz program at a public university that there are students admitted to a NYC school that are not as talented musically as some who were denied because of their academic record. Anecdotal evidence from enrolled students backs that up. The bar is set so high at these top schools that they don’t feel like they can dilute the academic average. That’s what a conservatory or music school is for. 
It’s been an absolute wildcard in S’s jazz performance admittance journey, because you never know where you really are in the matrix. Each data point you can check off the list helps, but until you get that email, you never really know.
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