Written by Rachel Ford |
Featured Image by The Odyssey 

While other students have pressed submit and are finally done with the stressful college application process, some of us aren’t even close. For students like myself, who are auditioning for music programs applying for college goes beyond the common app.

The first weekend of December I traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana to audition and shadow classes in the music therapy program at Loyola University. Music therapy is using music as a form of therapy to help people with everyday tasks. The school of music at the University, asks every classical vocalist to prepare three memorized contrasting pieces. One of these must be in a foreign language.

The day before I auditioned I had the chance to sit in on music therapy classes at Loyola. As soon as I saw the campus, I knew it was where I wanted to go. The professors were all very excited and passionate about the classes they taught, and the classes were all small This is something that is very important to me. I want to be a name and not a number at the school that I attend. One of the biggest selling points of Loyola is that it is located in New Orleans. I want to go to a school in a city with an environment that is different from home, and New Orleans fits this perfectly.  `

A few weeks before auditioning for Loyola, I auditioned for Berklee College of Music, this was a much different experience. Berklee is a jazz and contemporary school, so the audition requirements were not the same even though I was auditioning for the same program as I did at Loyola.  Berklee asks all candidates to prepare one memorized song but it can be whatever genre and song the candidate wants. Berklee also asks candidates to demonstrate musicianship and ear training through sight reading and improv exercises. I also did not have the chance to get to know the professors or take a lesson so the audition was a lot more nerve-racking.

I have a couple more auditions, but I was accepted to the Loyola music therapy program, which was my top choice so I am hoping to go there in the fall.