Hello college confidential, my post may appear as a bragging one but I am not trying to be arrogant.
I come from a very poor family, in a tiny island where education quality is poor and with almost no opportunity to seriously study music. I was recognized as a prodigy at age 7 but my parents were too poor to afford lessons, let alone a piano. At age 14 I finally was in the possession of a piano but was confined to self-study. After I graduated high school with rather poor grades, I decided to enroll in the local community college, but dropped out in the middle of the semester because the education level was simply too low. The fine arts music professor (who did not major in piano) still continued to give me lessons, while I was working part-time and practicing privately.
I turn 19 at the end of this month, and I plan to apply to schools in the United States for the Fall semester, but I feel something is wrong with my abilities at the piano. I won't go into detail but I have taught myself piano until now, and I have possibly accumulated bad habits with a mentor unable to correct them. I have already memorized my entire audition repertoire which consists of difficult pieces like Gaspard de la Nuit, which I can play up to speed, but there are quite some mistakes (both technically and musically) and I'm thinking admissions will consider me as a below-average student and will not grant a merit scholarship regardless of the pieces played.
I have no one to discuss this with; my parents and teacher do not care. I also won't be able to travel abroad to audition because of finances, which shoehorns me to recorded auditions only. I have looked into schools such as NEC, Eastman, Oberlin, SFCM, Thornton, and a bunch of others but they are so expensive I would not even consider going to them unless I have a hefty sum of money through scholarships. At those rates I would starve to death in the US.
Unfortunately I believe I won't be able to compete with the other extremely talented applicants who have studied piano at a healthy setting. Quite frankly, I'm uninformed and afraid.
Besides those schools, I have looked into UNT, University of the Pacific in stockton, University of Oregon, and CSUN that offer low tuition rates. I have poor grades, but I have a 1760 score in the old SAT, in 2016, which I very hope it counts. I would like to attend a school that is not lamentably incompetent in faculty and students, but not overly prestigious with ridiculous tuition fees. Thanks for all the recommendations.
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