Creating the List of Colleges

musicprnt
Thu, 14 Jan 2016 21:22:59 +0000

With NYU, whatever merit money they offer is generally pretty small given the cost of the school (it is over 70k for tuition, room and board), and I have heard from a number of people who applied there for music performance in Jazz, Classical and contemporary music, that the merit aid is generally very, very small (their need based financial aid isn’t that great as well). It may be worth a shot, @GoForth,if you are willing to audition there, but I am pretty dubious about their merit aid. The conventional wisdom, that I have seen little to make me think differently, is that the traditional conservatories, the Juilliards, NEC, CIM, etc, are not very generous with merit aid, that most of it is tied to need based aid and what they consider need seems to be way out of whack with what people seem to be able to pay. I will add, though, that if there is a school your son really likes, it may be worth the expense of going through an audition and seeing.

Another possibility might be the New School in NYC, their Jazz program has a great reputation and they are less expensive than the ‘big schools’ last I checked. Another place I have heard has a good reputation might be William Patterson in NJ, I knew of some working Jazz musicians who taught there, and it likely will be more affordable.

I wouldn’t be too worried if you don’t have a big list to decide from, not everyone does that. Conventional wisdom is that you apply to at least 8 or 9 programs, my son applied only to 4, and he only considered around 8 or 9, because he already had an idea of what he was looking for. I agree with another poster, your son should be thinking of all the factors, is he a small town kind of kid, where UNT might really be a great fit, or would he pref being in a bigger town, or would it even matter?