<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I’m hoping to hear from parents who have experience about college admissions for musically talented kids. My 10th grade daughter plays trombone and I’m hoping it might help give her some sort of edge in the process. I have no idea where and when to start positioning her for the audition/interview, etc.
Many thanks,
mdw</p>
<p>How good is she? There are an awful lot of kids out there who play instruments. Will she stand out from the crowd?</p>
<p>My daughter plays with two school ensembles and a community ensemble, and she has been in the All-State honors band, but we don’t expect this to count for anything more in the admissions process than any other serious and sustained extracurricular commitment would. It’s just not that unusual.</p>
<p>Depending on where she applies for college, there is music scholarship money out there. It might not be a lot, but hey, my older son’s $600/semester scholarship at least paid for his textbooks. If you want her to be seriously considered, but only if she truly enjoys playing, make sure she has private lessons and participates in some sort of ensemble OUTSIDE school (important). My son was in a county-wide youth brass band and had a lot of fun with it.</p>
<p>I would look into a few music colleges and find out what they expect a student to prepare for auditions. Shell have to audition sometime in her senior year. Theres a good chance shell be expected to have a repertoire, sometimes they even specify the pieces. Is she doing solo and ensemble? If so, she can use her S & E pieces as part of her repertoire. If shes trying out for all-state, shes probably already working on her scales and arpeggios, which shell have to know. My biggest advice- get with a private teacher and start developing a repertoire.</p>
<p>mdw - Check out the music major page (from the college admissions and search page, under college majors). There are a bunch of us supporting each other as our music kids go through application, audition, and adjustment. There is a wealth of information there. Most of the posters are music majors or music parents - but there are also discussions of musical kids who don’t want to major in music, or who want to double major. My S2 is a junior horn player at Juilliard. My other 2 kids (S older, D younger) are musicians who didn’t/won’t major, so I’ve got some experience from both sides. D is a violinist, thinking about a minor, so we are looking at schools where a non-major has some performance ops, but where the music program is good enough for her. </p>
<p>One bit I’ve learned - a school that has a strong violin program is not often the same school with violin merit money. The fact that the school is strong in a particular area means there are enough kids interested that the school doesn’t need the “bribe.” So we’re looking for programs where they are trying to build up their string program by hiring good teachers and offering merit, rather than seeking out already established, strong programs.</p>
<p>thanks for taking the time to reply.</p>
<p>Thanks for the direction and sharing your experience. I’ll check out the music page now. Hope your search goes well.</p>
<p>mdw</p>
<p>I think her big perk could be the college band.</p>
<p>One of my son’s music teachers mentioned that there is a shortage of trombone players in h.s. and college bands. If he is right, your d might luck out.</p>
<p>music is a very good EC to have because you can get extremely involved in it. There might be some money offers out there as others have mentioned as well.</p>
<p>If your D isn’t going to major in music, than her musical stuff will just be a very good EC. If your D is going to major in music, that’s when you’ll need to do the auditioning stuff which will take place during senior year.</p>
<p>~plug~ Drum Corps International (<a href=“http://www.dci.org%5B/url%5D”>www.dci.org</a>) is going to be on ESPN2 tonight at 8…</p>