I think this post is a perfect first step! We went into the situation “blind” and while my daughter had a good outcome, I don’t necessarily think it was the most advantageous one in many ways. This forum is a huge and generous resource that I didn’t really start using until we were already well down our path.
Depending on your financial situation, an alternate option is to work with a consulting firm that specializes in music. We had a free consultation with one, and he was incredibly knowledgeable and helpful. We did not end up pursuing it just because of cost. In retrospect, I wonder if it might not have been worth it. There was just simply a lot we did not know, and all of that information probably would’ve been customized and consolidated by him into something very useful that would probably have resulted in us taking a different approach, and I’m sure walking away with more merit.
Finally, someone said this before and I want to echo it. My daughter was a YoungArts finalist this year, and the experience was transformative. She attended for a different discipline than she is pursuing, which I think was not necessarily ideal to her admissions profile. However, overall these kids were very very very successful in their college admissions. I can’t say how much those results are due to YoungArts obviously but the experience alone was well worth it. My point is more that that you have to be proactive about going out and finding the opportunities that matter. When my daughter applied, I randomly found it two weeks before the deadline. I had never heard of it before, and no one in her music life had ever mentioned it. I didn’t even know if it was legit at the time. I know it’s a longshot, but there are classical music and jazz music categories, so it’s worth looking into as he gets older.