It seems they were busy at JSOM yesterday because my son (jazz piano) received an updated offer from them last night, as well, and it was quite a surprise as it covers full OOS tuition + fees. Still waiting on a decision on a second appeal at his top choice (Oberlin) but, whatever happens with that, his decision just got a lot more difficult as he had almost written off IU before last night and has very solid offers from everywhere he was accepted. I’m not complaining as it’s a nice dilemma to have but, man, this is a tough decision for a 17-year-old.
Impressive! My son asked for a doubling of his initial award of $19,500 because that’s how affordable UNT was, and he could be perfectly satisfied at UNT. Cheers!
Congrats to all you new Hoosiers parents! Welcome to the family:). Join us in the IU Jacobs Parents FB Group. Be sure to answer the membership questions–it’s how they keep it a safe space for discussion and from filling up with spammers. Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Parents | Facebook
Congrats to your son! Feel free to reach out if you have questions as the summer goes on–housing, dining, bus system etc. I’m definitely a “Been There, Done That” parent when it comes to that stuff after having 3 at IU–1 currently in Voice.
Congrats to everyone here whose kids have made decisions! My son is still trying to decide, so I thought I’d see if anyone here has advice for him. He’s choosing between UMich and Oberlin. He likes the professors (double bass) at both - they were his top 2 favorites after trial lessons. His private teacher is advocating for Oberlin because he thinks it will give him a more solid footing for a career in music. My son’s main hesitation is the size of Oberlin. He pictured himself at a bigger, more urban college. Every time we talk to Obies about this they say it’s a great place with lots to do, but I’m worried they are all people who preferred a smaller campus from the get go.
I think he also feels like Oberlin is the better choice if he’s really going to give it a go in music, and UMich is the better choice if he wants to hedge his bets and be in a really solid school academically on the non-music side (he’s gotten into dual degree programs at both schools).
If anyone here has had experience with a kid who wanted a bigger urban campus but who went to Oberlin for the great music program I’d love to hear how it turned out!
Edited to add: Oberlin offered better merit, so it will be less per year, but since it’s a 5 year program, it ends up basically a wash between the two.
I’m encouraged that some of you heard from IU yesterday. We are still waiting to hear about my daughter’s appeal. The professor reached out Friday to see if we had heard anything yet and said she would do some checking on her end. We got a letter from them over the weekend offering an additional $1k loan over the usual $5500 federal student loan, but that was definitely NOT what we were going for when we appealed!
We are about to send a second appeal to Oberlin, as well, but I was hoping to have IU back before we do so that we know all of the current numbers. My daughter spoke to the teacher at Oberlin yesterday, who also said she would also push for more from her end. I am so nervous that we are down to the wire with no decision yet!
@Clara30 , my son went through a professor at IU who sent the information to the Jacobs admissions people. I didn’t file a formal appeal on paper. I think this is very interesting. Yes, it’s late in April, but there is time. I think from what we are seeing at IU, deals are made late. Is there anyone else to reach out to on staff? Im rooting for you!
I don’t have anything to add on the Oberlin experience, however my D is also a kid who is looking for the larger urban school experience and she is leaning toward UMich after getting into a few conservatories. She also got some pushback from her private teacher that UMich really doesn’t produce “musicians.” My D wants the opportunities a larger school gives and is not sure how far she will take her music career, so pretty sure she is going to give UMich a go if the financials end up working out by Thursday.
I say if all our talented kids end up there then they will definitely start producing musicians, and well-rounded ones at that!
Did you all see the news about how Juilliard is trying to go free tuition for all? If anyone has younger kids who do music, maybe this would be helpful. It’s too late for us as, even with appeal, their COA came out to well over double our other school’s COA, so we declined. It would have been great to have had the option to financially consider it. Hopefully grad school will be an option.
chiming in on IU. We just got our acceptance letter today..It fairly late as they ask addtl documents that we need to get overseas. They mention about scholarship and stuff so we do not have the numbers yet but anxiously waiting and thanks for your tips here..will reach out to the professor right away , hopefully that would help expedite things before acceptance deadline. Goodluck to us!
I sent another message to them yesterday and copied the teacher, who has also been advocating. They finally sent me a message back saying they hadn’t received the appeal form (which they never sent me) and asking me to send it back, which I did. So, they didn’t officially start looking at it until yesterday
At this point, I think IU is basically off her list, but I did want to get their final offer before declining. It’s going to be hard to say goodbye to the teacher, whom my daughter loves, but she has decided that a smaller program is better for her. I know we still have some time, but DD is feeling very overwhelmed and just wants to get the process over with. We have great merit from Oberlin, and we’re still waiting to hear back from Eastman and Juilliard (not expecting much more from Juilliard, but keeping it in the mix just in case). Odds are she will end up at either Oberlin or Eastman.
Whaaaaaat? I hadn’t heard that about Juilliard. How will that work to have upperclassmen paying tuition while freshmen get free tuition, I wonder? Or will they make it free for everyone going forward? Wouldn’t that be a nice surprise to be a sophomore, junior, or senior, and find out your tuition is suddenly completely covered!
Based on the articles I found, it looks like it’s going to take some time to raise the $$ for this, but wow, wouldn’t that be nice.
My understanding about Juilliard is that they will focus on making grad school free first (they have already started that) while slowly increasing full (and higher) tuition awards at the undergrad level. Eventually it will all become completely free. It’s going to be a very slow and gradual process.
Hello, its crunch time and I don’t know if the appeals and scholarship notification will come in, in time for the deadlines. We were a bit late in the game due to delays in some of the documentation we need to get overseas. So my question is, if we accept the offer - can we still appeal scholarships and awards from the school or would it be dead end for us?
We are down to two schools - one his dream school ( no scholarship notification yet and I would assume the first notice will not be much and saw we are anticipating a second appear.
The other school is our safe school - not big in the music name but professor is very good so it would be our 2nd choice if we can’t afford the first one.
Other schools are now out of the question due to finances.
Other question is, would there be open appeals or consideration on succeeding years to lower tuition and housing fees?
So sorry about my questions, just moved in the US so I am really not familiar. TIA.
You may have done this already, but can you contact this school and clarify if there is an award pending? I would suggest a phone call at this late date.
This is very school dependent. I know my kid’s program provided the opportunity for small adjustments to merit/aid annually but I do not know if it is the norm.
That is interesting, a number of years ago they talked about doing that, but between a market correction that lowered their endowment and some other financial considerations, they decided not to go that way. That has a lot of implications, for example, do they reduce the size of the program, to go full free tuition with the current student body size would be a significant amount of money each year, would require a pretty large endowment to generate the income that it requires. All I can do is wish them well, I think it is a worthy idea.
