My son didn’t really click with the marching band but he may be unusual in that. He was very serious about band competition in high school and has done World Class Drum Corps. He just couldn’t seem to adjust to the idea that the purpose of college marching band is really for fun and football fan entertainment (he is not at all into sports). And by midway through the semester he also had the engineering college activity that he would really have rather been doing.
Band was 4:30 - 6:30 4 days a week plus most of the day on Saturday. It didn’t clash with class commitments. They played at all the home games but also took the full band to the UT, Baylor, and Oklahoma state games so really 9 of the 12 games. One thing to be aware of is that they promised several times during recruitment that there would never be any extra rehearsals but in fact there were other extra time requirements like soccer games, volleyball games, alumni events, concerts, etc. They usually only took a fraction of the band to each event but it was probably 4-5 extra engagements.
They got early move-in to the dorms but even then OU had all the same process in place as regular move-ins so it was super easy. The marching band fee was $428, mainly for shoes and some pretty nice Pride swag. But they also usually had a free meal on game days and all travel expenses including meals were paid.
One last thing to keep in mind, is that there most likely will be a bowl commitment over Christmas break. I don’t know if it is always the case, but they flew kids more than 400 miles from Norman back to Norman from home at the program’s expense.