I think there is some confusion with this post, there is a difference between co teaching/sharing a student and sample lessons. The point of sample lessons is for teachers to see the student and see if there is a fit, and vice versa. At most programs when you apply you specify a list of teachers you wish to study with,usually in ranked order, and if you get admitted they then go through the list and see if the teacher at the head of the list is wiling to accept the student, if they are the kid gets in, if not they go to the next teacher. The whole thing with college admissions is that you have to pass the audition and then be accepted by the teacher.
While kids often apply without doing a sample lesson, either because they have run into the teacher at summer festivals or the like, or they do it on reputation. The point of a sample lesson is to see if the teacher is a fit for the student and vice versa, it makes part 2 of the acceptance easier. I can’t see how teachers on the violin faculty can get their nose bent out of joint with a student applying and then doing sample lessons with various teachers, there is no ego involved because they don’t even know who the applicant is. The only time I can think of a teacher getting his nose bent out of joint is they already knew the student, told the student if they applied they would accept them, and the kid does a sample lesson with another teacher.
Where egos come in is if you are studying with a teacher and you then do sample lessons with other teachers, that could definitely get noses out of joint…but that is student already there.
I highly encourage sample lessons, the teacher/student relationship is really like an apprentice/master relationship and it has to work both ways.
There is another thing with Jacobs, there are some big money people who are very passionate about the school, who endow chairs and support programs and the like, and I suspect if the legislature tries to do what you are saying there will be hell to pay,because these are people who are big donors to political campaigns too. The people behind stupidity like this honestly don’t have a clue, and yeah, this smells like the heritage foundation or some similar think tank. Plus if they seriously eliminated the BM degree , if that passed and the governor signed it, they would see ridicule on a major level aimed at them.
Yep. Every school has a yield rate on acceptances ie the percentage of students that accept admission. And there are so many factors, kids audition at a lot of schools but often have a dream school, and that will open slots at 5 or 6 or whatever schools they don’t accept. Given the cost of music schools and relative generosity with money, kids get accepted and simply can’t afford it, which can be heartbreaking. It depends on the instrument too, with how deep in studios there is on it. Waitlist at Curtis is probably a lot more difficult a position than it might be at another school, like NEC (and I use them as hypotheticals), Curtis being free tuition prob has less potential students saying no than nec. Sometimes waitlist means the kid passed the audition but the teacher(s) they wanted weren’t available or didn’t want to teach them, and if they can find a new teacher, they can get admitted. And yeah, the waitlist may drain after the April 1st deadline and you might lose a deposit at another school if the waitlist school was a ‘gotta go there’,
Not necessarily FYI. Curtis uses the waitlist in a different way than other schools. Sometimes a current Curtis student is undecided as to whether or not to continue in the fall due to upcoming professional auditions. If that student lands a position, the waitlisted applicant gets a spot.
Given that a lot of schools will be coming out “By April 1st” that leaves us roughly a month to potentially appeal financials. I’m obviously hoping we don’t need to and that the school my son chooses is a no-brainer, but is it really possible to appeal with that short of a window since we have to commit by May 1st?
I would recommend doing a search on this site for past years’ similar threads–Class of 29, 28 etc. I remember there being a lot of discussion about appealing financials etc during previous years–especially during the month of April in each thread…. Might give you an idea of the process and the timeline.
I will just say that checking last year’s (Class of ‘29) might be better than Class of ‘28. The latter was my youngest daughter’s class and there was a delay in the FAFSA that year that probably wouldn’t make it a very typical example….
My daughter graduated last year, and we appealed at 5 of the 7 schools she auditioned at. We did have an extenuating circumstance, as I was laid off in mid-March, just as all the offers were coming in, so we had a drastic change in our financial situation. It unfortunately did not make us eligible for need-based aid, but having relationships with teachers helped, and they went to bat for us and got my daughter more scholarship money at several of the schools.
But I will say, it was kind of stressful. We had numbers coming in until literally the last minute. One school threw a little extra $$ at us and wouldn’t budge after that (it was a private school, so what they offered didn’t make much of a dent). One school upped her offer significantly after our initial appeal and then came back with even more on 4/30. Another (one of her top 2 choices) offered a little more after our appeal and then emailed us an offer of still more at 7 pm on 5/1. At that point, she had just committed to her other top choice about an hour earlier, which had come back with quite a bit more $$ a couple of weeks earlier. It made the offers very competitive with each other, so my daughter agonized about whether to switch to the other school but eventually stuck with her first choice. It was definitely the right choice for her, but the decision at the time was difficult.
I definitely recommend appealing as soon as possible after the offers come in, and if you have relationships with teachers, stay in contact with them throughout the process. Some schools give the teachers more weight in the scholarship process than others. Some schools may offer more right away, and others may have to wait until people start declining. One of the schools we appealed was Juilliard, and they told us upfront that we might not get an answer until right before, or even slightly after decision day. I think we ended up hearing from them a day or two before, and while their offer was decent for them, it wasn’t enough to make it doable. What really made a difference at her top 3 choices was that the teachers really advocated for her.
Thank you so much for this personal experience. A couple of questions for you, if you don’t mind:
Did you start your appeal with a conversation with a private teacher, if that relationship was already established?
Did you let you child do all of the talking, or did you communicate with people as well?
When you say to appeal as soon as possible after offers come in, should we wait for ALL offers to come in?
For context, my son has a phenomenal offer (combination of talent/merit and need-based aid) at a school he likes very much but is currently number #2 of the schools he’s been accepted to. He has a less desirable offer from a school that is his #1 at this point (although still waiting on 2 decisions that could affect that and make all of this moot). He has a wonderful connection with a private teacher at the #1 school, and that teacher keeps checking in to see what he’s thinking. I actually met teacher at #1 and we bonded over some people we knew in common. So my question is: Should my son communicate with that teacher or should I? Or should we be going straight to the financial aid office?
If the offer from #2 is so good that he would be able to go there with no negotiating, I would go ahead and communicate with #1. It should be MUCH easier dealing with just one school versus the 5 we dealt with! I did most of the official appealing (most schools have a process that includes forms and documentation, which I took care of), but my daughter did email the teachers at her top choices and plead her case. One thing she did include was additional accomplishments she’d had since applying/auditioning. YoungArts was the big “extra” for her, but something like an All-State choir/band/orchestra, UIL distinction, competition win, etc would also work. In our case, the voice teacher she wanted to study with at her #1 school was also the YoungArts vocal mentor, so they got to work together for a week, which gave them an opportunity to see how their teaching/learning styles would gel, and I think it really made the teacher pull for her when it came time to negotiate.
Since your son already has a good relationship to the teacher, I’d probably have him contact the teacher directly and tell them that that school is his first choice, and he really wants to go there, but he he has this great offer from #2, and he really needs #1 to match it to make the financials work for your family (or something similar). At that point, the teacher might direct you to an official appeal link, and they will hopefully also talk to whoever they need to talk to within the administration to convince them that he is a student they really want in their studio, and they should offer what they can to get him there.
Thank you! This is so helpful. I’m so glad things worked out so well for your daughter! Sounds like you did an incredible job supporting her and helping her get where she will thrive.
Since he’s still waiting on 2 schools (both of which he likes very much and they could top #1 if the offers are right), do you think we should wait on those results to come in? I hate to have him mislead this incredible teacher, possibly have him go to bat for my kid, and then in the end say “oh, nevermind, xx school accepted him with a great package so he’s going there.” It all feels so icky. I do want him to communicate with the teacher to be transparent about his/our position, I just don’t want to be unethical.
If you think the other schools could top his current #1, I’d wait. I agree with you that it feels icky to “promise” to go there with a certain offer and then back out.
I know things feel really urgent right now (especially with so many non-music kids already having their decisions made), but at this point you still have plenty of time, so I would wait until the other offers come in and see how everything shakes out. It’s nice to keep those teacher relationships intact, especially if he thinks he’ll be going to grad school eventually, etc. All teachers understand that kids have to make decisions, and sometimes those decisions have to be mostly financial, but then in a few years they might be applying to grad school and will need to rekindle that acquaintance.
After she made her decision, my daughter wrote thank you emails to a couple of the teachers that she really gelled with and thanked them for helping her and expressed a hope that they would work together in the future. We have a short list of schools she auditioned at but felt would be a better fit for grad school, so hopefully those relationships will continue to pay off!
This feels like the right way to go to me. It is SO important to keep in mind that these connections don’t necessarily end when the college search is over, and also that the music world is small and memories can be long. Thank you so much for all of your advice. It is helpful to me, and I know it will be helpful to others here on the forum as well.
Good point, I was trying to make a general point about why waitlists can be very different between schools, that a school with higher yield would in theory be harder to get off the waitlist, but as you pointed out with Curtis it may not always be true. Curtis is unique because of the way it operates, where kids enter their young, and can already be starting a professional career and decide to leave.
grasping for any inkling of a direction: if a school sent my son an email about 2 missing financial docs (a very specific tax doc for one of our businesses, not anything general or basic- I don’t think they’d even care about this unless looking in detail) because they were reviewing his file, do we think he is accepted? Why would they do that work if the dept says no?? Just entertaining myself by posting this here
I would wager they are not “not looking” at his application if they are asking for more documents. Their staffs are not paid to compile financial aid profiles for students in which they have no interest.
I’d take it as encouraging, and I think you are seeing things clear-eyed. But then again Im an optimist.
