This was over 10 years ago…but my D and I met with a U of Miami recruiter who was quite green. He was nice but didn’t understand performance degrees. He was very focused on my D’s ACT score which was below their “safe” zone. Her GPA was fine. He recommended several times that she re-take the ACT…or she may not be accepted. She wasn’t going to do that (it wasn’t that high on her list…this was for MT). She auditioned and was accepted with scholarship. She was contacted shortly after her audition…and told not to make any decisions without contacting them first…that she would be receiving good news for Miami but that it could take a few weeks. It did take a few weeks to get the official acceptance. Hope this helps.
Edit: I do think that it helps if your academics are solid. But, as always, performers/musicians are allowed some leeway on the “numbers”.
They give free tuition to national merit kids, so they attract a lot of national merit, which really pushes their SAT up. Most of the kids from our high school who get in have B average and test optional. They seem to target kids who are rejected by UCB and UCLA somehow. I wouldn’t sweat it especially for a music kid.
I also don’t have any inside scoop on these particular schools but yes, there is a chance a student could be rejected by a school after passing a prescreen and even having a good audition. This happened to an excellent musician we know who got through prescreen and audition at northwestern but wasn’t accepted by the school. I believe he had less than a 3.0 GPA. He was accepted at several schools and ended up going to Manhattan school of music.
UMich is the only university music program I know of that will not invite students to audition if they don’t meet the school’s academic standards. On the upside, if a student is invited to audition, it means they’ve been accepted into UMich.
So if they give an academic clearance at the time of the prescreen, why are they still potentially denying an app for academics on the second round? That makes little sense.
This does feel unfair. Especially considering the in person auditions can be a significant cost with travel, accommodations and missed school.
When we toured NYU Steinhart we were told that the main admissions office had the final say and that quite a few of the musicians they really wanted were academically denied.
Makes you wonder what is a point of a general overview at all.
I can understand that if grades dropped significantly between the time of general overview and a final one, there could be a rejection, but if you pass a kid on academics, than that decision should stand. So bizarre.
I know Northwestern has very high academic standards so I do expect they wouldn’t pass a kid in a first round that doesn’t fit into the university academically at least on the lower end.
It’s insanely costly to audition - even an instrument here requires a seat, plus hotel… all for 10 minutes on stage when anything can go right or wrong.
We were also told by Ut Austin and UW Madison that even if the student passed the audition, there is no guarantee that the student will get accepted after the University review. Both schools said that does not happen very often, but that academic review is important. I am sure their bar is lower for music students than the rest.
1.) You will begin to see how different schools “act”…and like it or not. All schools will want you to “apply”. The sales arm of the school will push you to apply (to push up their number, imho). The music faculty can be a bit more forthcoming on acceptance chances for talent. That’s why trial lessons are nice IF you can get them. A faculty member has little stake in the game for you to apply. They can be more honest. However, on the academic side, you may get little assistance at some schools…and faculty may beg off…that may be a sign that they have less power there. Or a faculty member could look at your background and say something like…I can go to bat for you (meaning they probably have some influence…but still NO guarantee). It can be like reading tea leaves a bit.
It is worth looking closely at the student body to see if your kid is at least in the lower ranks for acceptance. You can call some schools (music admission) and they’ll tell you. For my D at Miami, she was fine for GPA. She was below the safe range for ACT…but not by much and not out of range of the student body. So we figured she would be safe. The one outlier every year seems to be Northwestern. I’m not sure why.
2.) At this point, you need to take your shot at these schools. Once you get pre-screen results back (if required) and start looking at travel times and costs, you will need to make difficult decisions. For grad school, my D did pass a pre-screen at Curtis (we knew that they passed a lot of kids for 1 or 2 spots). Still my D could not resist the siren call of that school. It was an expensive endeavor (2 nights in a hotel - luckily with friends). She and her buddies were all kicked to curb after the first audition. It’s still makes me mad that she wasted the money on what we knew was a long shot. But sometimes you need to take the shot. I explain this bc…you can never know for sure…so you just need to set a budget and do your best.
Edit: You can also consider remote auditions due to costs. Schools are understanding about that. But I know that it doesn’t completely replace the visit to the school.
I have a kid that did music at UW Madison (from OOS) and graduated recently. This is definitely true. I heard a number of stories about this happening (audition acceptance with eventual rejection from admissions office). OOS admissions to UW Madison is a bit unpredictable in recent years.
I recommend applying EA if possible, though they are defering more OOS students. Both my kids were accepted EA prior to auditions. I help students with college apps at time and we are in the midwest. I’d just say I get the sense that the “Why UW Madison” essay can be important.
Not too many schools do it this way, but we did come across it at a few bigger public schools.
Prescreens question for classical music - some places like Rice seem fairly “descriptive” in how the video should look, but many of the schools aren’t. We do Youngarts every year, and they are really strict about “no movement of camera, no fades, no effects, etc.” but I’m not seeing the same type of language in most of these colleges pre-screen instructions.
I know typically the video is pretty plain - front view, get kid in view whole time, etc. - but for the “accompanied solo,” (the schools that require piano accompaniment), has anyone ever submitted a video that is more artistic? We have a recital video made/recorded by the venue where it occurred, but at times the image pans in/out, focuses on the accompanist, etc. It’s just more artistic and way beyond the capabilities of what we could ever record video-wise since multiple cameras were used. It’s obvious (or should be) that the sound isn’t edited as it’s a live performance, but, technically, there are seconds here and there where the camera isn’t “on” the player. Has anyone ever used a video like this for a college prescreen? It would save us hundreds of dollars from having to record again and pay an accompanist again to come to a studio.
This is a specific scenario. I think it’s worth the effort to ask the school directly.
Unless you were the recording sound engineer and the soundtrack never left you, it’s hard to tell if it’s edited. I myself know multiple ways to edit the sound track of a live performance, even during the performance.
It’s worth a call or email to the admissions people, but I would say no. Schools generally do not want live performances for prescreens, and they really don’t seem to want anything but a fixed angle. But worth asking.
We are also wondering how to handle time limitation on music supplements for non audition schools. Many want two pieces with contrasting styles capped at 15 minutes. Ours is 17.5. I can’t really chop a concerto or Bach.
Yeah, I always found it weird that they often say they don’t want live performances - obviously not everyone has the opportunity for live performance so it should not be required, but if you do, the college would prefer we record 100 times in an empty studio and pick the one “most perfect” recording, which doesn’t really represent if the musician can perform under a “one shot performance” pressure, versus a video that actually proves that the musician is comfortable performing on stage in front of real people. I can imagine situations where some of these prescreen videos end up actually not representing the true performance abilties of the musician.
It is probably possible to edit the sound track of a live performance, although less so in this case due to the livestream and legitimacy of the institution streaming it, but honestly, it’s much easier for me to edit the soundtrack of a video I make myself if I wanted to. I would think issues of potential editing/splicing of the video could occur under any video situation especially with some of the audio editing tech that’s available nowadays. It’s like kids who use AI to write essays… I have no idea how admissions handles this or can accurately evaluate much of anything anymore.
I don’t think prescreen videos are ranked. I’m not a musician so I don’t know how they evaluate the recordings. My son explained that the prescreen recordings are largely to filter out those who don’t fit. Those who demonstrate potentials are invited to live audition, which are evaluated more closely. It’s quite similar to job interviews. The applicants can have fancy resume and fancy portfolio (some with selective truth), but still have to demonstrate real talent at the live interview to be on the short list.
In Texas, the high school all-state auditions are recordings. The rules are quite simple - everyone in the same metro area is given a time slot, show up, play one take for the same sound engineer to record, and leave. Then the recordings are labeled with numbers for the adjudicators to evaluate.
