Thank you both for your input; He has participated in the Manhattan school of music summer camp and auditioned for and made the camp again this year. He comes home even more focused and excited about a career in music when he completed the camp. He was nominated for and accepted to participate in SCMEA in both elementary school and middle school however he has been nominated for, but not been invited to perform on the H.S. level, as he continues to be preparing level 5 NYSSMA pieces which is a large part of how the students are able to distinguish themselves; through score and level. While his score is always A+, his teacher will not skip certain pieces for the sake of moving up to level 6 because he believes these pieces are top important to ignore and require quite a bit of effort and time to tackle completely and thoroughly. His teacher also believes that his academia will be less important for performance schools and says most important is the audition, which got me VERY nervous. I believe that he needs to continue to be diligent with regard to his academia, and luckily he is continuing to do so. I just feel like to put everything on the expectation that he will be hired as a percussionist with any consistency right out of school is a huge gamble.