As we navigated the college process, this forum helped me with those specific performance related questions that no one else knew the answers to. I would like to briefly recount our journey in the hope that it might help someone else down the road. My son will be pursuing horn performance at Northwestern in the fall. This is just my experience and in no way am I preaching gospel. I was inexperienced and fumbled the entire way. And I apologize for the length of this post in advance:).
Where to apply was daunting. In junior year we began our research. The hardest part was finding a school that was good for his specific instrument. A top rated music school might not have the best horn teacher, and a lesser known school might. Do your research before you visit. We wasted some hours on trips that could have been avoided with a simple web search. For instance, one school didn't offer dorms which was a must on our list. Another mandated that you double major but the second major he would have considered wasn't offered. Really do your research before you head out. As for finding "the best teachers", we mostly relied on his current teachers for recommendations.
He applied to 13 schools. I needed some safely schools, both in terms of admission and in terms of merit scholarship. I knew we wouldn't qualify for aid. You must fill out the FAFSA even if you don't think you are eligible. You will need this to qualify for merit in most schools. I phoned schools and asked them silly questions like "how many students receive merit", what percentage of the tuition to they give", etc. Some schools were very helpful, others couldn't tell me anything. In the long run, I didn't let cost get in the way of applying, because there was no way of knowing the outcome. He applied to Rutgers, Temple, Boston University, Boston Conservatory, New England Conservatory, Rice, Carnegie Mellon, Bienen / Northwestern, Julliard, Curtis, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes.Six of these required pre screening videos. Out of these, three he did not get an audition with - Julliard, Curtis, Rice. In the end he auditioned for the remaining 10 schools. To our complete astonishment, we was admitted into all of them. If I could have done anything differently at this point it would have been to find a way to apply to fewer schools. The auditions were too much. If we had more confidence about merit or admittance we could have narrowed this down more.
A note about conservatory vs university. Many of the universities' music schools are very much like a conservatory. Not much difference except you have the funding and options a big university might offer. In the end, we found very little difference in the music programs at both. Differences in many other areas, but the music curriculum, rigor, expectations the same.
He did take lessons with most of the teachers. Some he knew from master classes. Some charged, some didn't. One requested a donation for a horn specific fund at the school. One school we didn't take a lesson at was immediately off the list once he auditioned for the teacher. A lesson in advance would have lead us to not apply to that school. Another interesting note, not auditions are the same. Some were run like a traditional audition and some more like a mini lesson so teacher & student got to know each other.
All of the schools came back with decent merit $ except Carnegie Mellon, MSM, & Northwestern with 0$. Boston University gave the least after that. Eastman gave the most. The absolute least expensive schools for us would have been Temple and Rutgers (we are in state). Of course those were the first 2 that my son declined. We successfully appealed for more $ at NEC, but it was a small amount they came back with. His top choice was Northwestern. I phoned financial aid and they "put us on a list now that they knew we were interested in receiving merit???", and we would have to wait to see if anyone else declined. My son was corresponding with the horn teacher there and she knew he was waiting for an answer on merit as well. We were told that if funds free up because people decline admission they would be disbursed. He eventually got an email that he would get merit, almost equal to his other two top choices. (NEC & Eastman) In the end he chose Northwestern. Decision made! And that is our story. Hope it helps someone out there.
↧