Should My Son Just Cancel This Audition?

sbjdorlo
Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:40:50 +0000

Long story, sorry!

My son is scheduled for an audition at a large state school on Feb. 16th. The cello professor there is supposed to be great according to people here on College Confidential. My son reached out to him back in September, sharing a solo performance he did, and he received positive feedback from the professor.

Problem: The professor is very hard to get in touch with and doesn’t respond to many emails. My son signed up for the audition a long while ago, and my son had reached out several times to try and schedule a trial lesson. He finally heard back from the professor in mid-December who said, “Yes, let’s have a trial lesson around the time of your audition, but I’ll be on tour during your audition, so can you come on XX or XX dates?” This school is 6 hours away, so we have to plan to get a hotel, etc. etc.

The problem is, all my son’s audition had already been scheduled by then, so no, he could not do either date for a trial lesson. So, he emailed the professor back and suggested another date for the trial lesson and audition, but he never heard back. Meanwhile, the school music dept. called, and my son told them about the situation, so they penciled in the possible new audition date. Now he’ll need to call them on Monday (because that date was to next Saturday) and tell them that no, he never heard back from the professor so he needs to keep the original audition date.

So my question: Is it worth pursuing this school or should we just drop? The cello prof won’t even be there; my son’s never had a lesson with him; the school is financially out of reach unless he gets a big music scholarship. He’s been admitted to the school and people have said that this cello teacher is great, but I’m thinking, how can they determine scholarship if the cello professor isn’t even there when he auditions?

Should he just drop the school and move on? Should he audition and then try to have a trial lesson in March, or is that too late to determine scholarship?

Advice is welcome!