Congrats! Rice has a fantastic music school, and especially if your kid is even thinking of an orchestra career, the orchestra there is better than some pro orchestras out there. Also has a great campus in a great area. My S went there for grad school and it really helped create the arc of his now career. Put it this way, I don’t know what his instrument is, but getting into Rice he is getting into a much stronger overall program than BU (obviously, just my opinion).
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So ecstatic for him! I have been praying.
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Yes, most of them will hold your aid for next year if you take a gap year! however you have to accept ONE of the colleges and give them a deposit and let the others go, i’m pretty sure. And ask them about it, too, be honest with the school you are choosing. (and make sure they approve before you decline another i’d guess!) My dtr did this with a scholarship for a competitive audition based dance program in a university and they would give her a spot when she completed the program she was doing during the gap time. For instruments they probably want to know asap so they can take someone else this year, i’d think, but you can certainly ask and , if they say no to a gap year, then you just plan to accept and go in the fall or decline the offer and audition again, or see if another of his schools will let you take the gap year. I think we maybe paid a deposit each year she took the gap, or at least the first year? of like $500, or maybe they asked $900 the second year. She went to a two year training program elsewhere so took the gap years. They will want to know your plans and also probably tell you that the student cannot take any college classes elsewhere during that time.
I know a music student that took a gap year when he was accepted to Temple and another dance student who did this with a college in NY, as well as dancers who took 2 year gaps for a 2 year training program and held their spot at Princeton and UC Berkley respectively. So you should be able to take the gap year and have your aid maintained, they will give you paperwork accordingly. Just ask them and they will tell you yes or no. Have your reason for the planned gap ready for the conversation.
best wishes!
Shucks, sorry
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Don’t know “for sure” it’s due to academics, but I do know that he’s a top player in the instrument with a 4.2 GPA and that he just got accepted with merit to Rice, which I assume has the same or higher academic standards. The difference seems to be that Rice weights music over everything else (assuming the kid isn’t totally failing everything) whereas BU is willing to cut students (at the undergrad level) based on factors irrelevant to musical promise.
A big CONGRATS to you and your kid. Maybe the music gods were redirecting your kid to Rice.
Of course I say that a bit in jest but truly it’s easier to think that then go down the rabbit hole of “fairness”. There is NO fairness in music. You have hit the fairness wall…and you’ll hit it again and again and again. So it is a learning moment. My D, who is in her early 30s and has had some really good years getting hired, had a bad audition year last spring. She had over 30 auditions and got only a few small projects and one decent show. She really believed that she should have been hired for one great show…but alas the music gods said no. Then the person that got “her part” got a national tour…and the music gods smiled on my D. And she didn’t have to bow out of any shows (except one small works) so it was smooth sailing. She’s very happy right now…and so am I!!
So, why yes with merit from Rice and a flat no from BU. Only the music gods know. My unsolicited advice is to try hard to leave it at that…and move on. You never know if BU or people from BU will reappear in his life…so keep the door open a tad (with a lot of grace from you that it just wasn’t the right time at BU and they are still a “fine” institution…may take some time to think that). That is always a good strategy for you and your kid in this small world. You want to be careful to not burn bridges.
Again, I’m so happy for you. From a parent who has suffered the sting of unfairness many a time.
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I second this! You can’t get worked up over every rejection/unfairness your kid encounters in this business, or you are going to stroke out before they reach the age of 25. This is coming from a parent with 3 kids in the business. I honestly don’t know how I am still standing because I will be the first to admit that this is easier said than done. But I try really hard–haha! And, as you hinted at, I now have enough perspective to know that the roller coaster tends to soar right back up as quickly as it plummeted down.
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As I always say to parents in music…buckle up! And, if you haven’t experienced yet, that’s great. But the ride will come for you at some point. Still, YOU have a choice on how to react. I work REALLY hard to be patient during the down turns…and keep my mouth shut…waiting for the upswing to come. For talent, it usually comes…and you just have to have faith in that. Just believe your kid will meet the challenges (and suffer in silence…lol).
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Just another example of how mentally taxing this whole business is. One of my daughters has been in high achieving studios for many years (due to many relocations, she has had to switch teachers frequently). There is always that kid, or kids, that she is competing against within the teaching studios where she has felt inadequate or inferior to. When they compete, it is such a mental game. Friends and family sometimes wonder why we put the kids through all that stress. Well, isn’t that the music world, or rather world in general? I would rather they learn those hard lessons early on, while they are still living in my house, so I can help sooth the sting. Eventually, it becomes easier to handle. This i think is healthy. Life can be cruel. But for musicians it is exponentially more so. And when the wins come, and surprises happen, it keeps that internal flame burning. Last year, the daughter I refer to here, won a huge competition with a large amount if money. There were several merit awards given, and she basically won them all! I am sure others felt this was unfair. But the judges chose her. We will take those wins and cherish them, because it will help when the sting of a loss or rejection comes again. It is the nature of the business. She is currently in a competition right now, and the adjudicator asked her if she wanted to go into music, and when her reply was a solid “yes”, he said something to the effect of good, that she will be making a great choice. Those are the little nuggets our kids need. We as parents can affirm their hard work, but hearing it from a seasoned professional just makes it all that much more believable. Also, competitions are a way of evaluating the training the kid is receiving, as well as “practice” for the all important music school audition! At one point in this musical journey, my kids were the top of their studio. They were winning local competitions. We were all new to this industry and really naive. It wasn’t until the teacher (who was a bit naive as to what was going on outside the small, somewhat rural, community in which we lived) decide to enter them in a state competition, that our eyes were opened. It was at this point, we made a change in teachers, even driving hours for lessons so they could take lessons from a teacher where my kids faced reality of being at the bottom of the new studio. It was really difficult for them, but they learned so many valuable lessons. I see many parents who try to shelter the kids from the sting of the reality of life. Not just music. If a kid gets to the point where they are auditioning to all these great music schools, then they have learned valuable lessons: perseverance, hard work, diligence, overcoming heartaches, etc. There is no participation trophy in this industry. These qualities will take them far in life. That is why a medical school will accept a student who received a music degree. They know fully how difficult these degrees are! You parents should also be commended. There is a certain dedication we must also endure, mentally and timewise! In less than a week, evaluating all offers will be done. I fear for my daughter, it will be a difficult road in the decision making process. Many great schools to choose from! Just more challenges to face.
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Has anyone with an NYU acceptance seen merit aid offers yet? It seems like many schools wait some time before posting merit to student portals.
NYU famously, is stingy with merit $… it is however, disproportionately distributed to the arts programs. Many kids at Steinhardt get merit $. Hoping mine is one of them!
Not yet - We do not have high hopes that it will be enough at 100K per year.
At our NYU audition, I thought that the director said that admissions does not offer any merit to Steinhardt undergrads at all?
Yes - my son was accepted at NYU (congratulations to yours!) and he says they offered him a 5,000 award.
Has anyone heard from The New School yet?
Thanks to all in this forum for their wisdom and perspective!
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Musical gods is a great description on so many levels, and music is much like the myths of the ancient Greek gods, whose actions can be seemingly random and often seem cruel. With admissions, there is no fairness and the entire thing is so subjective that you get inconsistent results. In academic admits this happens, kids apply to elite schools with almost perfect stats (like all the 5 on the APs, tons of ECS, near perfect GPA taking honors or high level courses, 1600 SAT, you name it) and don’t get in to one school but get into another. It could come down to where the kid is from, it could come down to an interview with an alumnus, you don’t know even with all that objective firepower.
Music doesn’t even have that, it is entirely subjective, it comes down to whether the gods of the admissions panel think the kid is playing well enough to go there and a teacher wants to teach them, and it is totally subjective. A violin student could have been CM of the NYO, been CM of all state, won a ton of local competitions, and they get rejected from a number of top level schools. Why? It could be even with all those accolades, the panel didn’t feel they were a fit, that their playing wasn’t there compared to the other people they auditioned.
@momto5kidz said something very true, she talked about one of her kids switching teachers and finding that as good as they thought the kid was, they were at the bottom of the new studio. It is both eye opening and humbling and it underlines a key point, as good as the kid may seem, there is a huge world outside there in music (well, relatively). When my son switched from his main teacher when he was about 11 to a higher level teacher (his prior teacher was a principal player in a major regional orchestra), he was shocked to find out how much work he needed to do, that it was an entirely different level of teaching and playing. As a parent who didn’t know music, it was eye opening, you think the kid is good, talented, doing all these things…and you find out what we thought isn’t true.
When you are dealing with a subjective thing like music, obectivity honestly doesn’t mean much because everything is subjective, based on the impression let’s say a kid makes on an audition. There are objective things in playing, not arguing that, if a kid has poor intonation on the violin or is playing way out of tune or flubs an excerpt in an audition for an orchestra, that is pretty easy so see. But when you are dealing with kids whose playing is up there, it isn’t that easy, it is basically if the panel likes the playing or not and there is nothing objective about it. If it is a screened program (pre screened I mean), they have weeded out most of the ‘no way kids’, likely it is a group of high level kids auditioning whose playing quite frankly likely isn’t that much different from each other and it is going to be something purely subjective, did they like the kids playing? One of the reasons for weird rejections can be style, the tradition the kid is playing in, there are violin programs here that if you are playing a style that isn’t the dominant one in their program , you can play incredibly well and get rejected.
To be blunt, that subjectivity can include other forms of unfairness as well, and it is the nature of the beast, and music students and parents have to learn that it is part of the landscape. And yes, it was a lesson my wife and I had to learn to deal with, as did my son, nepotism exists, preferential treatment exists, bias exists, as does just seemingly random chance. Take it from me, there were times when my wife had to calm me down, when I was mad about something I felt was unfair with how my son was treated or something, so I am speaking from experience. When you have something like the arts, where it is so subjective, unfairness is part of the landscape and people in that area have to learn to deal with heartbreak and setbacks. The violist in my son’s group according to my son is one of the best violists he has ever run across, yet he spent years auditioning for orchestras and not getting in. He studied with the top viola teachers out there in some of the top music programs, did well, yet hit that brick wall. Why didn’t he get in? Could be that what makes him a great violist in chamber doesn’t fit what orchestras want.
In the end, you have to basically accept that the process can be unfair or biased or not what we think it should be as a musician, because if anything, it is worse when you get beyond the music school walls. The only thing you can do is take the lumps when they happen and shrug them off, enjoy the victories when they come, and hope over time the ratio of disappointments to victories declines:)
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Congratulations to all the acceptances and scholarships!!!
The journey continues.
When my son made his commitment to music school two years ago, I thought “good we can relax now”. I thought there’s some sort of pipeline where he would follow the steps and arrive at a deserved place - like go to class, do homework, get good test scores, pass certification exams, get internships, get a job, etc. That was late April. In two months I learned how wrong I was. He was in a summer festival, talking to college students, and telling me what he learned about multiple auditions every year for workshops, camps, music festivals, competitions, etc., all of which are building blocks towards an orchestra seat, for which it’s like 300 applicants for one opening. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this reality that to me feels like a messed up web of uncertainty.
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Ain’t that the truth? Whenever I start making myself crazy trying to make predictability out of the uncertainty I remind myself that this is not my journey.
It is my amazing musician’s path. And his determination, talent and ability to shake off the rejections is what matters. I am forever in awe of his positive attitude and internal confidence which allows him to keep growing and reach new heights even with all of the challenges along the way.
Musicians are truly extraordinary in every sense of the word.
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Yes! This is why I don’t look until he does, but I’m tempted! Only one to go!
@old_music_prnt your post describes a music world that feels so different from the one my doctoral level musician kid lives in (and music gods, really?). I just want to say that yes, competition happens at every step along the way, but a lot of cooperation happens too, at least ideally. And there are many ways to make things work out if students let go of the goal of an orchestra seat. I have not seen my kid or their musician friends experience the kinds of stress being described. They make their own way and are resourceful. I just want to inject a little positivity here. If a school rejects because a student’s style doesn’t fit, great. Students need fit too.
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Did anyone apply to CIM and get merit aid? We did and the merit aid was far less than expected (around 30K), and I was just wondering if this was across the board, perhaps, due to CIM’s potential financial difficulties.