music tapes; submit or not

wjb
Sun, 31 Oct 2004 18:57:38 +0000

I believe that the general recommendation is that only very serious musicians who plan to continue playing at college should send musical tapes. When a student sends a tape, the admissions officers do not evaluate it themselves. They forward it to the music department for a ranking. They get some really outstanding tapes, and mediocre tapes don’t help an applicant’s cause. Also, if a student is admitted based in part on the strength of the tape, attends, but then decides not to participate in music, the music department will be understandably unhappy. So if your son is really accomplished, send a tape. Otherwise, he should just list his music activities without sending supplementary materials,