Marching bands are the ones you see on the field pre-game and halftime – actually marching and doing a show.
Pep bands play in the stands. Usually the marching band serves as the pep band for football, but for other sports – basketball, hockey, etc – those are pep bands.
Some schools require you to be in marching band in order to audition for pep band, but it’s really all over the board as to how it works.
(RIT, for example, doesn’t have football – thus no marching band. But their pep band, which primarily plays at hockey games, is robust.)
Counselor at D26’s school warned all the seniors yesterday that if you’re applying to an REA (restrictive early action) school, it would be VERY unwise to violate the REA requirements. There’s a student who’s doing that. Counselor knows about it because of the colleges the student is applying to through SCOIR.
That’s dumb with a capital D. Great way to end up with a bad counselor LOR.
Mine would consider club cheer though Auburn does not have a club cheer option. They also do not recruit out of high school. If she decide she wanted to try out, she would do that in the spring of freshman year. I doubt she will though. I hear you on the whole identity thing. Cheer has been her only sport/activity since she was 9. When she did All Star it was an intense, year-round thing. In high school it takes up mid-August until late November, then it is over. She has never wanted to do a winter or spring sport. She uses the off season to work out and recuperate. It is a lot on their bodies and she has suffered a back fracture, a thumb fracture and a concussion over the years
Can I just say I LOVE the whole marching band thing. Sadly, our high school barely has one- like maybe 6 kids total. It is so sad. I went to the Auburn game last weekend and watching those kids on the field at halftime gave me chills. Just so cool and fun to watch.
I agree. And I guess that’s why there’s a class action lawsuit involving ED. A lot of people don’t feel comfortable using it for that very reason, but at a school filling 65 percent of their available spots with ED, it’s not hard to see the implications of that choice. Mine has one true ED but otherwise, I think he’ll roll the dice with RD—not necessarily for money reasons but because he needs more time to make a decision. That’s another bummer about ED—forcing commitment before you might be ready.
Auburn’s band isn’t representative of the average college band – they are NEXT LEVEL good, lol. Really spectacular. And so fun to watch!
My kid is a little intimidated by that level – her high school band is tiny, only 44 members including color guard. They do compete against much bigger bands in the open class successfully, but still.
But she has a friend from high school – a tuba player – who is marching at Auburn this year. And our school sends so many kids to Auburn in general because it’s only a couple hours from us.
For those band lovers - The SEC often will show the band halftime shows. Sometimes they are on SEC+ and sometimes ESPN3. We watch SEC+ on SlingTV and ESPN3 through Disney+. It feels complicated every week, but it’s great to be able to watch. I will always watch Alabama if shown, but have tuned in for a variety of other colleges when I remember. The station will show “coming soon” until halftime starts and then they show all of half-time. Sometimes the view is terrible - the first Alabama game this year had the camera pointed at the goal posts. Boo. But often it’s very well done and we enjoy watching.
At Tulane the Marching band is formal and very structured (as it is at most Universities). Lots of practice time throughout the week in prep for the Football games. The pep band (basketball, volleyball) is much less formal and the players show up based on who’s available in that time slot - so some games end up with a larger band than others.
I am THIS close to sending University of Chicago an email to ask them to stop sending us mail.
Earth to Univ of Chicago:
You cost $98,000/yr.
Our EFC is too expensive.
You’d never admit my kid anyway. She doesn’t fit your profile.
It’s too cold there.
So just stop it.
Seriously, just stop. Because you don’t stop with all of the snail mail, D26 & I now pretty much despise your institution. It’s clear that the only reason why you want her to apply is to decrease your acceptance rate for US News & World Report rankings. D26 has selected the option multiple times in your emails to unsubscribe, yet still you send email and snail mail.
We get SO much marketing, it’s ridiculous – like at least 5 pieces of snail mail a day. Usually I just chuck it into a big bag and call it done, and D26 has zero interest in looking through any of it. But once in awhile we’ll get one of those giant glossy and thick books that probably cost an arm and a leg to print, and D26 will look at it and say, “Hello, save the trees much?”
But the email marketing is even more annoying. We read the advice to open a new account to deal with all the college spam, but for some reason her school was adamant that she use her school email account for all college-related things. And now she gets like 50 emails a day, with increasingly aggressive subject lines like ARE YOU APPLYING? DEADLINE COMING UP SOON. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s missing the actual school emails from teachers that she needs, buried in there somewhere.
And it’s the “fit your profile” thing that gets me, too. There is one school that was marketing aggressively to her brother, who was in special Ed and requires certain accommodations. It’s a college that his former private special Ed school often sent kids to – they cater to a certain type of kid. So, that made sense.
It makes zero sense for D26 to apply there, yet we hear from this same school every freaking day. Why??
You didn’t ask me, but I also have a cheerleader and she is definitely planning on cheering in college. Most of the schools she applied to have pretty intense cheer programs. She’s being “recruited” at a couple schools (not all schools recruit for cheer since it isn’t an NCAA sport). I’m a little worried about the time commitment because I’ve heard from friends whose kids cheer at other schools that it’s A LOT, but I wouldn’t be able to talk her out of it even if I wanted to. I also think it will offer some structure and familiarity which is a plus.
@SpreadsheetMom I agree with @coastal2024. I love the marching band thing. Our HS doesn’t have a marching band, but they do have an amazing pep band. They’re the best part of Friday Night Lights in our town!
Sorry, I wasn’t purposely leaving you out! Yeah, I totally understand these kids wanting to continue their main extracurricular passion in college – because it’s where they’ve always found their place and their people, in addition to actually loving the activity – but also the worry that it’s just SO much time commitment in college.
I didn’t think you were purposely leaving me out. I just didn’t want to randomly respond.
A lot of the kids that start off cheering in college only do it for one of two years because at a lot of places, it’s a huge time commitment with none of the perks as other athletes get. The season runs from August to April because they cheer for both football and basketball (and volleyball and sometimes hockey) in addition to a couple of competitions of their own.
I’m always so confused by all the marketing emails/mail, etc. from all these random schools. Most of it doesn’t even seem remotely targeted in any way. My daughter got a couple emails and a brochure in the mail from the Stamps School of Art and Design at Michigan. They were like “you’ve drawn our attention”. Which made us lol because no one in our family has an artistic bone in their body. Not sure what exactly about my child drew their attention.
And yes, UChicago is a big culprit of this kind of thing.
It’s the whole game aspect of it that I don’t love.
Unfortunately what’s best for the student – having options, being awarded merit – and what’s best for the school – not under- or over-shooting their capacity, keeping yield high – are in direct conflict.
Not really seeing a resolution for that unless ED just goes away.
D22 opted not to ED anywhere because she liked several of her options, and she was hoping for some (unlikely) merit. I’m still annoyed at her experience with Tulane – applied EA, deferred (not before receiving a dozen emails asking her to switch her application to ED), then wait-listed in the regular pool. She really liked the school, but she declined the wait-list spot and moved on.
And it all worked out, so maybe the universe just knows better.
Yeah, I totally understand these kids wanting to continue their main extracurricular passion in college – because it’s where they’ve always found their place and their people, in addition to actually loving the activity – but also the worry that it’s just SO much time commitment in college.