Have your musician prepare the audition repertoire very well. In the vast majority of cases, music merit is based on the strength of your audition (relative to others on the same instrument), and the schools need/desire to have you as part of their music studio.
Really, predicting music merit is difficult because the audition part is so important.
One other way to try figure out merit is working directly with the teachers in the fall. This would require your kid to talk about money…so you’ll have to decide their comfort level.
Teachers may be a bit more forthcoming in private with your kid. I would not advise for your kid to lead with questions on money. But after a good meeting or two, they could try a heart to heart with a teacher that feels “approachable”. Your kid could say something like…I’m really interested in auditioning here…but in the end, money will matter. Do you know how that works for UG? They do NOT have refer to themselves or their talent level…just UG in general.
Some teachers may not want to respond in detail (besides what is generally known). But through the grapevine, I have heard of teachers saying…well we don’t give a lot of merit so if it matters a lot you may want to try us for grad school. Some have been forthcoming on their high needs or low needs for the upcoming year. So you could potentially glean some information.
It may be a good exercise for you and your kid to start decoupling merit from solely related to talent. That’s a hard hump to get over. But it can make the “money discussion” less emotional or scary…if you are simply asking about merit guidance in general…and not specifically related to you (which most teachers will not answer bc they don’t have enough control of the purse strings).
Something to think about with your kid. Remember music admission
WANTS you to apply (hence the 90% of kids get merit at our school!!!…and my kid got nothing…and didn’t attend…so that 90% may not reflect offers…only kid that accept!…so be careful with the marketing numbers).
On the other hand, teachers may be a little more empathetic to the high costs of auditioning…and getting no or low merit. So they could give you some comments, hints…or nothing.
Just another quiver in your bow.
Yes good point on the line that admissions will tell you about the percentage of students that get merit. We asked the same at every school that we toured and they gave us some GREAT percentage but in reality all it takes is a school throwing out $1 to someone as a merit scholarship and bam they are now part of that giant percentage that makes them look fabulous
Thanks!
Thanks. At the moment, we are focusing on ensuring she gets well prepared for the audition and to put her best foot forward.
Yes. That’s what we are focusing on now. Merit scholarships enter into the discussion, because of the ridiculous COA of many OOS schools. Without some understanding of the probability, pretty much all these schools will be reach, financially. 
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We have a really large family, so merit aid has been a necessity for our kids. Our musician is the youngest. Several of her siblings attended college on full rides (true full rides-tuition, room, board+). Music scholarships seem rather unpredictable. Merit scholarships, otoh, are far easy to assess. At this pt our strategy with our youngest is to aim for merit and hope for music. If you are unfamiliar with information in college data sets, I recommend learning how to read section C. Being completely harsh in the assessment of your student compared to the information in the CDS can be a great way to generate a competitive merit list for strong safety options.
Thank you. Yes, we have pulled together a prelim list of about 22 colleges /universities having parsed through the CDC for each, % of merit aid offered, average merit and yield%.
Actually, I should have been specific and started the thread with the question on “music” scholarship and not “merit” scholarship! My bad..
Exactly. You can raise your tuition $10k and then offer 90% of students a “10k merit award”
without having actually moved the out-of-pocket cost to attend… (and making a few extra bucks on the full-pay kids)
The thing with merit aid or even financial aid is when they say “70% of our students get aid”, they aren’t lying. What they aren’t saying is a lot of that is nominal, like 1500 a year. When a school costs 80, 90k, a 1500 merit awards is nothing.And whether said or unsaid, Merit aid is often tied to need, some schools are honest enough to admit it, others deny it but in fact that that. This is especially true at highly competitive schools where the level is typically very high, to be able to help talented kids who are from less well off backgrounds they put a needs test on merit (and this I know for a fact, my son has been told this by teachers at programs he knows, that unless a kid is some already known quanity, like a kid already soloing with major orchestras, it is tied to need.). There are also exceptions, you are with the star teacher at the school they may be able to get big money, it all depends.