My brother Pete sent us a note today pointing out a New York Times
article published on 1 April called “For Girls, It’s Be Yourself,
and Be Perfect, Too” by Sara Rimer. It sounded depressingly like
my daughter’s recent experience.
Below are Jessica’s final college admissions results. She is spending
this Spring Break week hanging out with her boyfriend, baking, gardening,
and researching again the five schools which accepted
her. Her assignment is to decide if she needs to see any of the
schools again in person before she decides which to accept. CMU invited her
to join a special multidisciplinary program which sounds very
interesting. Other schools are sending her letters welcoming her
to look into their music or pre-law programs. I think Jessica is feeling
good about her college choices.
Princeton’s rejection letter said they had 18,900 applications for
an entering undergraduate class of 1,245 students.
| College | Response | Music Conservatory | Response |
| Brown (Providence, RI) |
declined | — | — |
| Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh, PA) |
accepted | CMU-Music | declined |
| Lawrence University (Appleton, WI) |
accepted | Lawrence-Music | declined |
| MIT (Cambridge, MA) |
declined | — | — |
| Oberlin College (Oberlin, OH) |
accepted | Oberlin Conservatory | declined |
| Princeton University (Princeton, NJ) |
declined | — | — |
| Rice University (Houston, TX) |
declined | Rice-Shepherd School | declined |
| Smith College (Northhampton, MA) |
accepted | — | — |
| University of Rochester (Rochester, NY) |
accepted | — | — |
KatysBlog 
Katy, I happeneed upon your daughter’s school saga, it’s reminiscent of our own last year. My daughter auditioned Oberlin, Rice, NEC, MSM, etc… ended up at Shepherd studying performance bassoon, while her best friend ended up at Carnegie Mellon in the double degree program. My daughter practices or makes reeds 24/7. She is happy living for her music, but I am disappointed that she doesn’t take the time to experience college life. Her best friend is soooo happy with Carnegie Mellon doing music and humanities.
I have another musician up and coming (finishing 10th grade, taking IB curriculum.) He’s at Juliliard precollege and will be playing at Tanglewood this summer. I will be steering him towards Carnegie Mellon, maybe Eastman, Northwestern, BU, Vanderbilt and the Ivy’s (although it is hit and miss, as you’ve pointed out. If they are looking for a horn player, he’s in, if not, no way.)
Don’t feel too bad about losing Rice. Although she loves it, my daughter has no time for life! Sounds like your daughter is full of zest for life and would enjoy doing more.
Good luck on the decision. It was hard for us because we were stepping into unknown territory…we knew nothing about conservatories and music ed. My husband and I are both PhD chemists. The whole process was surprising with twists and turns, but in the end, it was like Harry Potter…”the wand choses its owner” and the school and the teacher chose her. Hope your daughter can decide what’s most important to her..it sort of falls into place from there.