Music As A Calling Card: Top, Top Schools Await

If you decide that you want to go as a “music minor” or non-minor, one thing that may open doors for you is the Music As A Calling Card option.

Your music can be a huge admission tool for you that gives you some edge in applying for schools that can be tough to get into. Most Dreyfoos students don’t leverage that calling card as much as they should.

Pretty much ALL top colleges, even the small and medium-sized ones, have music departments.  Dreyfoos students graduate as far more accomplished musicians than many other high school students, public or private.

So, if you are thinking of minoring in music somewhere, or you don’t want a degree in music but you really want to use your background to get the financial aid that you need to go to school,  consider the Music As A Calling Card option as a part of your “picture.”

Minoring without the Minor

So how do I use my music background to get into one of the schools without a music major/minor, but who have a music program at their school?

When you’re touring colleges, make sure you research the music department of the school before you go out to look. Contact a professor there, either the department chair (smaller colleges may limit info to that) or the professor who teaches your instrument.

You don’t need to go for a lesson, although if they ask, definitely a good idea to follow through and bring your instrument with you and play for them (With profound apologies to tubas, bassists and cellos.)

EMAIL THE HEAD OF THE MUSIC DEPARTMENT AT THE SCHOOL THAT YOU WILL BE TOURING, or the teacher for your instrument if they are that detailed in their department directory on their website page, and tell them that you are going to be visiting their campus on whatever day coming up, and that you were interested in finding out more about the music program at their school,  as you’re a student musician at the Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida, and you’d like to continue to play in college.  When you get there, follow through and meet with them.

Most music departments won’t come out and tell you that they can help you.  Some will, many won’t.  Still, if they want you, the professor speaking with you, or giving you a lesson perhaps, will probably knock anything from a note to admissions that they met you, or that you profile well for them, to a plea to admit you to help out their program. At some colleges the email might go no further than the admissions officer’s email; Other schools where they consider faculty input seriously, they might put a note into your admissions jacket.

You have nothing to lose by putting yourself on their radar with ANY SCHOOL’s music faculty. No guarantee that it will materially help you with admissions, but you have nothing to lose by having a conversation with the music department, even at smaller schools, especially if your edge getting into that school may be your skills as a musician!

So when you see “Music As A Calling Card” on one of our reports, we are telling you that it is a good idea to make that connection if you want to go to that school.