<p>With the contacts I have had with high level students applying to music programs, conservatories and music programs within universities, I think it is very difficult to make blanket statements.For example, Juilliard has the reputation of not being good with merit and other financial aid, but I have known students who have gotten decent aid, including merit,up to a full scholarship. A student my son befriended at a summer music festival is a violinist, and has a full ticket scholarship to Peabody which I believe is mostly merit based (I could be wrong, some could be merit, some financial aid). I would muse that it might be easier to get merit scholarships in music programs then it is in academic ones, what I hear in the academic world seems to be that unless someone is Einstein, most aid is based on need…</p>
<p>And others hit the nail on the head, it also depends on the instrument you are playing and your level. If you are a terrific bassoonist, and a program needs solid bassoonists because a bunch just graduated or decided to be in a punk rock band, you could get a lot more merit aid then let’s say a violinist who is technically on a par or above you, simply because there are so many talented violinists out there so their pool is larger and with a lot of high caliber talent. </p>
<p>I think the real answer is you don’t know which way the wind is blowing until you actually get out there under sail i.e you don’t know until you try. Yeah, I have heard a lot of the same things about conservatories, that they are basically just bastions of the rich, that a talented kid has no chance of getting merit aid and so forth, and while I am sure there are grains of truth in that, some of it could also be kids who thought they were the greatest thing since Paganini on the violin for example, was told by their local teacher they were the greatest, made all local, all state, all universe, etc, and then they applied to a high level program like NEC,Juilliard et al, and on the talent scale they were in the middle of the pack of people able to be accepted, but didn’t stand out, and they make the assumption that they didn’t get merit aid because the school doesn’t offer it, rather then realizing that perhaps what they thought of themselves was highly overblown…(I know of one person directly like that, a girl who was pretty talented on the violin, played in the same youth orchestra my son did, did the competitions, etc…and then applied to some big conservatories, got in some, but didn’t get much merit aid…and I can tell you that in terms of proficiency, despite being concertmaster of all state, etc, she would be at the bottom end of things at a high level pre college program, which tells you roughly how they would place in college audition level…and she pretty much said it was because they don’t offer merit aid)…</p>