Music schools for students without private vocal education?

College Majors Music Majors
41

Is there any general college advice you would give to a student?

42

Merit aid covers it at schools where it says it does. For example, U Denver gives (or used to) $3k more for living on campus. Ithaca give $2k . Ithaca does have full tuition scholarships that go to a select few but thise are likely Ivy level kids - but you never know - the Presidential, which requires another app.

My daughter had merit aid more than tuition - so we got a check back.

Unless you get an endowed scholarship, you will not find merit aid to be more than your tuition.

You need to come up with a plan to pay for school. I hope you land a Hail Mary scholarship like the Johnson at W&L or Levine at UNCC but it’s not likely - so you do need to plan for the reality of - how will I afford school ?

If it was easy to get enough merit like you think - every smart kid in America would….

43

With a 3.8 unweighted GPA, you grades will be fine and/or very good for most music programs. Your class rank is similarly quite good. We cannot evaluate your auditions because we are not hearing your play or sing. The small number of people I have known who considered going to university to study music composition had written music already. If you have done the same then again we are not able to hear your compositions. This makes it very difficult to predict where you will get in.

However, there is no point in getting accepted to a school that you cannot afford to attend.

There are a few cases where students have attended a university that they could not afford, and had to drop out. Even with a cosigner on the loan there is generally still a limit regarding how much debt the cosigner can qualify for, which can be a cause of a student dropping out once the limit is reached. This is can be quite unfortunate.

The point is for you to get into a school that is a good fit for you, where you can study what you want to study, and that you can afford to attend for long enough to graduate.

Many of us here on CC are parents and have seen how children do after graduating university. Getting a degree that leads to a job that pays well enough for them to live and pay off whatever debt they have is a good outcome. Being stuck with debt and no job is a bad outcome. Being stuck with a lot of debt and a job that pays badly is also a bad outcome, even if you love the job. I can remember at least one case where a new graduate got a job that they loved that paid badly, but because they had no debt they could just afford to live on their own in spite of the very mediocre income. This turned out to be a good outcome.

This is what I would assume also. People who have just graduated from university whose degree is not one of the few obviously big paying ones often get first jobs that do not pay very well. Paying basic living expenses and also paying off a loan might just not be possible in many cases.

I do however find it very difficult to predict how much aid (need based plus merit aid) you will get at various schools. Also, whether merit aid results in less need based aid can vary between schools (strictly speaking any merit aid that you get would reduce your need).

I am wondering whether given your financial constraints, even if we did know how your audition would go we still might be hard pressed to suggest anything that could actually be considered a safety. You might just need to apply and see what happens.

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44

I am considering two SUNYs which are affordably priced( Potsdam and Oneonta) Are those a good idea?

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45

IMHO I think that applying to both of these schools is indeed a very good idea. I wish you the best and am crossing my fingers and hoping that you get good financial aid at both of these.

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46

Crane requires auditions.

Potsdam has $7,070 tuition - if it’s waived for Excelsior, great.

Potsdam estimates room and board are $16,500. Perhaps that will go down or up off campus.

Who is paying the room & board - plus books, travel to get there, night time pizzas and more. And if your folks make more than $125K b4 taxes, who is paying tuition?

They require a FAFSA for merit - odd . and you need an 88 GPA (on the 100). They have other scholarships $500-2000.

It’s an audition school.

Oneonta has merit up to $5K a year for top kids. It also requires auditions.

It’s direct costs this year are near $26K. Even if tuition is free, it’s another $18K or so. And will go up over time. Merit can be $5K.

But if you get Excelsior, will any school give merit - since tuition is free. You can check but I’m guessing not.

So either way you’re going to need- upwards of $20K for room and board plus other stuff - books, fun, etc.

So sorry to keep going back to it but who is paying?

So in that sense, unless you have a plan, no these two schools would not be a good idea.

It’s time to have a sit down with mom and dad, go over the thread and figure out - how will I fund my education?

47

I work with low to moderate income students that are first in their family to go to college. Almost universally, they want to leave their state. So far, none of my students have been able to do that. The issue is always money.

I had one student whose parents made too much for her to qualify for need based financial aid and they refused to help pay for college. She is currently attending a state school where she got scholarships for free tuition, and a little bit of the room board. And then she applied to many, many outside scholarships to make up the difference. Unfortunately, she is scrambling again to get scholarships to cover the room and board portion of her sophomore year. She will need to do this every year.

I had another student that actually committed to a private college and then she wasn’t able to get outside scholarships to cover the difference. Her parents couldn’t/wouldn’t cosign for any private loans. She was able to go back to the closest public university to her home and ask if she could still enroll there (she had been offered free tuition at that school, but had declined the offer). She lives at home and commutes to the university.

I have a student this year who really wanted to move away. The only school that offered a full tuition scholarship was the smaller branch of a state university in the town close to her home. So she will be living at home next year and attending college for free.

Each of these students was very strong academically, and had a compelling personal story. Each got into their “dream school“ or a competitive program for major. But they could not afford those schools. At the end of the day, each of them ended up at the most economically affordable school.

I would tell you the same thing I tell them. The most important thing is having options. You will have infinitely more options if you come out of school with low or no debt then if you come out with crushing debt. You will have more options in where you can move, what kind of job you can take. In addition, choosing the least expensive school doesn’t mean that will be the school on your diploma at the end of the day. Going to community college for two years and saving money and working might mean you could transfer to a different school. Honestly, in music many people go to graduate school. If you are a great musician, that graduate school could be free (or low cost). But if you’re under crushing debt from your undergraduate college experience, you can’t afford to go onto graduate school. Again, you just want to have options.

It is absolutely OK to apply to your dream schools, if you can afford the application fee fees and the time involved in the application and audition. But you have to have schools that are financially safe.

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48

Ok…I read again…you don’t have a private voice teacher…but you have a good relationship with your choir director. Please speak to this person. They might have an idea about colleges where you can pursue vocal music somehow. And about repertoire for auditions. These are both important components for any auditioned programs you do.

I would also suggest you look at colleges that have ensembles for those who are not music majors. I also know a number of vocalists who majored in something other than music, and found excellent church and/or community choirs to join while in college. They loved this.

As an aside, one of my kids is an instrumentalist who did not want to major in music, but did want to continue to play her (Underrepresented) instrument in a college orchestra. It took some searching, but she found several colleges where she could do so, and also take instrument lessons at no additional cost IF she played in the ensemble(s).

So…think out of the box. You might not need to major or minor in music at all to have a fulfilling music experience while in college.

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49

I am applying to SUNY Potsdam, which is relatively far away, and is pretty cheap when it comes to four year colleges.

50

If your parents are not willing to fund any of your college costs, how do you plan to pay for SUNY Potsdam in full?

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51

I will get some aid, and some loans. It is a lot cheaper than other schools I am looking at.

52

I think it’s also important to mention that if a student is receiving any amount of need-based aid, closing the cost gap with outside scholarships may not work the way the student assumes it will.

Every year, we see students who are caught by surprise when outside grant money that they had counted on to pay their bills, actually gets gobbled up by the college, because additional scholarship money reduces the student’s demonstrated need and the need-based aid gets adjusted downward. Here’s the latest example of this scenario: CWRU keeping grant

Sometimes colleges will allow students to “stack” scholarships and need-based aid, but often they won’t. Making over-optimistic assumptions and then having money you’d counted on evaporate is a path to be avoided.

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53

Oh, I didn’t know that. I haven’t won anything for scholarships yet, but I am pretty sure I will receive some from my high school, which offers a lot of scholarships to seniors when they graduate. My school is very small. With Potsdam’s NPC calculator, my total cost for four years was about 55,000.

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54

You can only borrow $5500 the first year via federal loans. $27k for four years Where will the other $28k come from ?

The school requires an audition. Yes you’ll get in but what if you don’t pass.

Even with merit / excelsior and a loan, you will still have a significant gap to fund.

So you need to plan for this, given your parents won’t help. There are many cases like yours and kids have to drop out. So you need that plan up front. I’ll figure it out as I go along isn’t a plan.

55

OP, might you have any interest in music therapy as a major? Fredonia has an undergrad music therapy program, and the curriculum seems to strike a nice balance, including vocal performance training but also instrumental skills (piano and guitar) and practical skills, internships, etc. that help to create pathways to gainful employment that leans more toward the 1:1 type work you prefer, as opposed to classroom teaching.

However, there is an audition requirement for this program, so you’d need to investigate whether your skills are at a level to pass that filter, if it’s of interest at all.

On the affordability front… it sounds as if living at home isn’t a good option, but there are a number of two-year schools in NYS that have on-campus housing and are less expensive than the four-year schools. This might be a particularly good pathway considering the need to bolster your level of musical experience and to explore the major/career options available before you start piling up student debt.

This Wikipedia page is a good starting point in terms of identifying two-year schools with a residential option: List of two-year colleges in the United States with campus housing - Wikipedia You can look at which of the NY schools are close to four-year schools of interest. For example, Jamestown Community College, which is on this list, is close to Fredonia and has a “preferred partnership” transfer pathway. I’m not as familiar with NY schools, but in CA where I’m from, community college students can often dovetail their college experience, taking some classes at the four-year school and participating in performing ensembles, etc., before completing the transfer; you can look into what would be available to you in this regard, if you started at a two-year school.

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56

I am not worried about auditions right now. That I have figured out. What types of alternative payment is there?

57

You can work but won’t earn enough.

I listed some ‘hail Mary’ full rides above. Highly unlikely but you never know. Come back after you get an SAT.

But you can’t borrow without your family so if you go away to Potsdam, you likely can’t pay the 2nd semester or 2nd year bill.

This is the reality so while I don’t know the answer, it’s what you need to face. Hopefully you qualify for Excelsior but based on your initial #, you sadly won’t.

58

I just looked at the website for the Excelsior Scholarship and it said adjusted AGI, which means after taxes must be under 125,000. See link below.

https://hesc.ny.gov/find-aid/nys-grants-scholarships/excelsior-scholarship-program

59

The one thing you can control right now is your ability to start earning and saving some money.

I would suggest you secure a job this summer and work as much as time and circumstances allow.

In the good old days (when the parent posters on this thread went to college) it was not impossible to work full time in the summers and breaks, maybe work some hours during the actual college terms and pay for college.

I agree with @tsbna44 that this is not really an option these days as the cost of living has increased significantly, and in my experience with my own 3 kids it is more difficult to get full time summer work.

But it is a start. And landing a job (or two) now will help in several ways:

  1. Immediate savings for college

  2. A clearer understanding on earning potential for the upcoming years so you can plan with a budget in mind.

  3. Your foot in the door for the next few summers as many employers will keep you “on the books” for the future.

It will be really difficult if not impossible for a teen/college age student to close the gap of $13K per year (if I read your estimate correctly)
This is why posters on this thread are recommending ways to decrease the cost by living at home, starting with a community college program and so on.

But you can at least start now with generating income and saving. It is at least a step towards your goals.

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60

Not a music parent but others mention music students attending summer festivals - and sometimes at a cost which could impact the ability to work.

Also, please look up adjusted gross income ((AGI). It is b4, not after taxes. Your parents will know their AGI. It’s noted on their tax return.

From the IRS:

How to calculate your AGI

Start with your total (gross) income from all sources. This includes wages, tips, interest, dividends, capital gains, business income, retirement income and other forms of taxable income.

From your gross income, subtract certain adjustments such as: