Hi, just as one data point for you: my D received UC academic merit scholarship on March 20th and received CCM scholarship on March 26th.
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Hi, my D received her scholarship offer from DePaul on March 27th and had been admitted into the Sound Recording Technology (Performance Track) degree program on March 11th. She ultimately has chosen to go a different direction, but DePaul was definitely in the running for her.
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My opinion, the short answer to this is yes. I know this is a college forum and especially at this time of year posters are singularly focused on where their kids (and others) are going next.
But I encourage you to step back and look at where your musician has an opportunity to learn, grow and be happy. This is not solely dependent on the school they will attend. If there is a teacher that will move them forward and opportunities to study and perform, they will advance. It may not be the path that they (or us as parents) envision now, but it works out.
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I’m glad I am not the only one! I feel exactly the same way. My son has been playing piano for years, but only started taking it seriously for the last couple and is at an IB high school that focuses solely on academics and barely has a music program (He’s had 4 different band teachers in his time there) and we didn’t even know what All-State was, let alone other competitions, camps, etc. We were extremely native about this college process and it took years off of my life.
That being said, I’m proud of how far he got without having the “right” background. He was smart enough to reach out to the jazz piano professor at the public state university near us for help with his prescreening pieces and, although he didn’t pass most of his prescreens, he has built such a fantastic relationship with this professor and his playing has improved exponentially. So much so, that he is passing on 3 sought-after schools and the chance to go away, just to study with this professor.
I really hope things work out for your son with DePaul. But, it sounds like he has another good option as well with a professor that values him.
Best of luck to everyone with their decisions!
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I agree with others, please don’t feel this way. It is hard as a parent, because most of us to be honest unless we are in music, have very little clue as to how it all works. @bridgenail is at a similar point to where I am with our kids, they are established in music, and looking back is very different than looking forward, because we see what our kids have gone through, what the people around them have gone through, and it is a very different view than it was when we were the ones biting our nails waiting to see what happened with auditions.
As @bridgenail said in another (Brilliant) post, in the end it comes down to the kid, how they use the opportunities they get.We want our kids to do well, and it can seem like auditioning for music schools and getting into the right program is the only way to do that…the thing is we don’t really know what the right program is, we are stumbling in the dark. It is very easy to use a schools reputation as a benchmark, the problem with that is that reputation is based on a lot of complex things, it is based on students who have successfully gone on to be musicians or great soloists or playing in big orchestras, it is based on longevity, it is based on faculty, but it also is based on mass perception which may or may not apply.
Looking back at my S’s path, what we saw at the time and what we see now are different. He agonized over decisions and at the time we had no way or knowing which was the best. Looking back, he chose not to go to a school that there was strong pressure for him to attend, instead he went with a school because of the teacher. Looking back, I think had he gone to the other school, he wouldn’t have had what happened to him studying with this teacher. He agonized over summer programs, he had a choice between one of “The” big summer programs and a chamber oriented program. he went with the chamber program and quite honestly, it turned out to be life changing in terms of what he has done. Obviously “looking back” has its problems, because he could have chosen the big summer program, and done well with something else as a different path.
All you can do is have faith in your kid, in their passion, support them, and hope that they will make the best of whatever path they end up taking, because in the end, you don’t know. Lot of kids go to the ‘top’ school and end up not doing well, other kids go to the ‘other’ schools and do well, find their happiness.
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Using your example of the French Horn, the reason that IU or CCM can be attractive (and note, I don’t know what their faculty is like at the moment), is that they might have faculty who play in the Chicago Symphony or some other relatively high level orchestra. As such, they know what orchestras are looking for on auditions and can help the student work on how to audition. Likewise those schools tend to have at least one top level orchestra where the kid can see a)if he is good enough to be in it and b) then have the experience of working in a high level orchestra, learning how to be a good orchestra musician.
That said, in your example, the student could go to the local school and maybe seek out a private teacher who has played in high level orchestras and can help them with that, whereas the teacher at the school can work on the technical playing. if the orchestra at the school isn’t that good, there may be a youth orchestra nearby that they could get into that might help on that side of things (friend of my son’s was in the NY Youth Symphony with him, at the time she went to a pretty high level music program that she felt the orchestra program wasn’t that great at, so NYYS filled that need).
It sounds like your son is at a high level already, so that I think makes it possible. Note that getting into a good orchestra (ie one that is full time, pays a living wage) is not easy, few people no matter how talented come out of school and get into an orchestra quickly (it was relatively easier in past generations, when there were a lot more full time orchestras that paid well.). So if your S is thinking of that path, he likely will spend time after, doing auditions and working on himself even further, perhaps even go on to grad school. Going to IU or CCM might make the path a bit easier, but it is a hard path nonetheless.
My husband is a bassist. A dear friend of his and fellow bassist just retired a year or two ago from one of the major symphonies in our area.
On his symphony bio and any concert programs, he never included what school he went to. He had as his prior experience that he grew up picking grapes in the California Central Valley. Absolutely true. This man is such an inspiration, he continues to work with underprivileged young musicians even in his early 80s.
People are born as musicians, in my opinion. And the musician in them shines through, no matter the path.
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That is very true. To a certain extent as a music parent you do that, because a prevailing notion of success in the outside world is music isn’t success, in that success is often defined as going into something that is financially lucrative and all the benefits that come with that, which music often isn’t.
It has to be about the kid and their vision, what they see themselves as. In the violin world I have seen parents whose vision is their kid as a great soloist who plays with the great orchestras, and push the kid. In this type of parents eyes, even getting into a good orchestra or doing chamber or the like is ‘settling’. Sometimes there are music parents who themselves studied music, never ‘made it’, and live vicariously through their kid (no different than some little league parents, dance parents, etc). I have seen parents who say unless their kid can go to one of the ‘top’ programs in college, that it isn’t worth doing music (note, this is to the point where the kid got into those schools, but felt another program was a better fit for them, the parents were all caught up in name recognition and how it reflected on them).
Someone asked me once about why I ‘let’ my son do music, how he is a really bright kid and could be doing so many other things that were easier to make a living in, etc. My answer was simple, that I had the faith in him that he could find his own path and whatever it was, in or outside of music, that I had the confidence that he could find a life that made him happy and feel fulfilled and because of who he is also be able to live comfortably. I knew his passion was music, I saw he was willing to work hard at it, had the dedication to it, and trusted that he would find his way. In music especially they have to define their notion of success,what they want, because if they are working towards our notion of success it is more than likely they will doubly fail, they won’t achieve what we want and they won’t be doing what they want.
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That grain of salt is the ultimate pearl in a great post. Everyone who posts,no matter how well meaning, is doing so from their perspective, and they of course have their own biases and the like that influence what they write (including myself). One thing to look for in posts is specifics, someone who says “school X sucks” is pretty useless, because there aren’t specifics. If they say “School X doesn’t have a good orchestra program” or “School X in my experience is very expensive and doesn’t give good aid”, you see why they are saying it (and the other valuable thing is, people will weigh in and say “yep, that is true, saw the same thing” or “no, that isn’t true, in recent years kids are getting much more aid”…so you can weigh what is being said.
Music in school or as a vocation is so totally subjective, so totally opaque, that it is very easy to get angry about how difficult it is, how opaque it is and yes, how unfair it can seem, and to be honest , those emotions are real but they don’t help with the process and the other thing is it doesn’t help the kid, they will read your emotions and at worst, will think it means you are disappointed with them, rather than what you see as an unfair outcome for your kid. Our attitudes often are what kids catch, not what we say.
We also came to this very late. My son didn’t do any summer programs, hadn’t met any professors at any colleges, and didn’t get a “real” teacher who could help him prepare for auditions until this past May. I was nervous about him applying to colleges in music until I found this board this past fall, and then I became terrified. There were posters here talking about getting into the “right” summer programs, working with professors for years and maintaining an ongoing relationship so the professors would know their kid at audition time, about trial lessons happening a year or more before auditions, about years of competitions their kid had won, etc. I became very concerned/convinced that my son was much too far behind. We added on a lot of academic “safety” schools in case he couldn’t pass any auditions, which greatly increased our son’s work and stress.
In the end, he passed 3 out of 5 prescreens (thanks to that late-breaking teacher knowing what he was doing - my son made so much progress in the 6 months before prescreens), and he got into 100% of the schools where he auditioned in person. I am now convinced this was a combination of 1) his improvement between his prescreens and his auditions and 2) my son’s awesome attitude and teachability.
I think a lot of us here were impacted heavily by one or two posters with strong opinions about the “right” way to pursue music, and in the end, a whole bunch of us learned that there are many, many paths for getting into colleges, and it sounds like even more for pursuing music as a career. My takeaway is (as others have said), trust your kid’s love of music, and support them.
And one other specific piece of feedback for any future families who may be reading here in order to learn: we heard about trial lessons for the first time this past fall. It scared all of us to death. My son didn’t feel at all confident that he was good enough to approach any college professor and ask for a lesson. It wasn’t until he passed some prescreens that he was willing to even consider it. He did his first trial lesson in January, and ended up having trial lessons in Jan/Feb at almost every school he applied to. Sometimes the professor emailed our son, sometimes my son emailed the professor, and sometimes at the end of an audition the professor offered it for later in the day. It was totally fine that we hadn’t reached out a year in advance.
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I came here for the same reasons as you. I’ve lurked for a couple of years and was active last year when my daughter was navigating the audition process. I can say that the divisive dialog this year is very unusual. I’ve found lots of support and empathy in the past. This year some of the conversations have been less so, sometimes outright derogatory in the insinuations made about certain schools. Not every program is for everyone. But this board IS.
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I feel exactly the same way! I have been lurking on the music thread for 3 years, when my son first mentioned studying music and I panicked. In years’ past, posters have been so supportive no matter what genre of music or level of school being explored. I have been dismayed at the tone this year and I think it has led to less people feeling comfortable reaching out (I am a shy poster myself). That being said, there have been some incredibly supportive posters and I do appreciate their wisdom and encouragement!
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Agree. Surprising to me as well
We have no choice but to have the budget come first, and it has affected a lot about our journey. Add in a later start on strings, and parents without music experience and international differences and I tend to glean what I can from others and not worry too much about their biases (we all have biases which we are and are not aware of).
This board has been extremely insightful and useful, and I’m so excited for you all and the kids getting on to their next steps in their journeys.
Toi toi!
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My kid is at DePaul for grad school and while it doesn’t have the ‘prestige’ as some other schools/conservatories, his professors all play with CSO and/or the Lyric opera. That is amazing talent and he is so fortunate to have them teaching and mentoring him.
His undergrad (Temple) same thing - not as prestigious as Curtis, but, once again, his professors were principals at the Philly Orchestra. So, it’s not necessarily the school ‘name’ but whose choosing to teach there. One of his UG profs didn’t like teaching at Curtis because the students didn’t work as hard as the Temple ones. Just one data point, but another perspective.
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Hi! Not really what you asked, but something to consider specifically about CCM. For my son last year (viola performance,) CCM was in his top two. At that time, they did not have an appeal process. We waited all through the month of April to make the decision, but throughout that month, CCM increased his merit offers twice, likely as others declined their offers. He did not end up choosing CCM, but it was very, very close and a very difficult decision.
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I am glad for your son, that is awesome! I understand about the scary factor, the people who say you have to do this program, you have to do that program, I know that very well, there was a lot of pressure to do programs for example that ‘other high level kids are doing’ (when my son was at Juilliard pre college, the prevailing wind was “you have to do Aspen”…my son didn’t do Aspen, and the programs he did were attuned to what he wanted to do, they were focused on chamber music and fit what he needed.
The way I always tried to put it is that there are things you can do that can give you an edge, but aren’t ‘you have to do’. Summer programs can get a kid to see what other kids are doing and can get them introduced to potential future teachers and to learn from them and other kids about possible programs to do in college. Trial lessons can create a relationship with a teacher and have them potentially help with admissions or take them as a student. There are students who do multiple lessons a week, there are kids playing on very expensive instruments, and that can help. As you point out, kids on auditions may be a bit behind other kids but might show musicality and potential and get in, whereas a kid may be a hotshot, play technically better, but not get in because they didn’t see the musicality in them. A lot of the times when parents say “there is one path” is because their kids did well (and other kids they saw did well doing much the same things) and assume that is the only way to achieve the end result, and that isn’t true. Music is so subjective and so full of ifs that the best you can say is that certain things may help.
I have been on here a long time, somewhere between 12 and 15 years (though not continuously), and you do run into divisions and people putting down schools or telling people “you need to do this or else”, or people upset about the audition process venting on here, it happens from time to time. I have done it indadvertently, something I wrote recently that was intended to be positive could be taken negatively, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. At this time of year emotions are running high with the application process, and that is reflected what people post if the results aren’t what they expected.
It is one thing to be realistic, about how hard music is, about the financial aspects, or if someone’s dream is to play in a major orchestra but the level they are at would make that difficult to impossible (let’s say they only could get into non auditioned programs), then it is okay to manage expectations and the like.
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It is one thing to manage your expectations. It is quite another to say that a school settles for second-rate players just because you don’t get the monetary award you think you deserve. This kind of statement is insulting to present and past students in the program, and comes off as entitled. I try to operate under the assumption that it’s unintended, but it’s been harder to do this year since I’ve seen these kinds of things posted repeatedly. This phase of the process is so stressful when finance comes into the picture, but it helps to try and maintain grace by taking a deep breath before posting in frustration.
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