My daughter did NOT want to major in music. When she was looking at colleges, she contacted the head of the music department, the orchestra director, and the instructor on HER instrument (aside…this instructor turned out to be a poster on CC).
First up was to find colleges that would,even allow her to play in an orchestra without being a music major. DD is an oboe/English horn player. I will tell you…that was THE hardest criteria for DD to fulfill on her college wish list. Small schools with one orchestra, and a music major, had to offer that oboe seat to a music major…if they had an oboe music major. So…places like College of Charleston were out. So was Elon. Some smaller schools have strong music departments and no orchestra for non majors…so those were off the list.
Anyway…my point is…you need to target schools that welcome non-majors into their ensembles. Then go from there. As it happens, the orchestra director at DD’s college was the one who recommended for the $250 per quarter performance scholarship. And at DD’s college, she got free private lessons as long as she played in the orchestra there. Over four years, that saved us a chunk of change.