Navigating college admissions is complicated and challenging for any high school senior, even in the best circumstances. For seniors who aspire to study music at the collegiate level, the process has several additional layers of complexity: pre-screening recordings, trial lessons, in-person auditions, music resumes, and a longer timeline, in which prospective music majors are often preparing for live auditions while their peers have already begun to receive acceptances. These extra layers can make walking along the college pathway feel more like trudging through an untamed jungle.
A major component of CMPI’s work is to help create a path through this “jungle” for our fellows. Every year, as the college application landscape changes, CMPI also has to adapt its methods to ensure that our fellows are equipped to transcend new challenges and present their very best playing in their live auditions. To that end, CMPI’s college application support spans every aspect of the process.
Forming a College List
CMPI fellows are exposed to college application strategies from the moment they join the program, whether they join in sixth grade or in twelfth. Every family is furnished with a copy of the book College Prep for Musicians, which includes a detailed outline of the various things students and families can do to prepare for college far in advance of senior year.
Beginning as early as twelfth grade, fellows are instructed in creating their college lists, organizing schools into “tiers” based on likelihood of admission. Fellows are further instructed in how to research prospective faculty and arrange campus visits and trial lessons. The college list is a living document that evolves as students and families conduct more research, visit programs and take trial lessons. Ultimately, each auditioning senior will have a varied list that includes reach, match, and safety (or “slam dunk”) schools with faculty who will be a good match for their individual learning styles.
To aid with this research, in recent years, CMPI has arranged prospective student visits to the Eastman School of Music, with additional college visits planned for future program years.
Through CMPI’s College Application Study Hall pilot program, in the 2025/26 school year, each eleventh grade fellow had exclusive access to a real-time workshop previewing the college application process and outlining the various preparatory steps that can be undertaken in the junior year.
Preparing for Applications
Music school applications involve many additional components compared to college applications for traditional academic majors, including music resumes, repertoire lists, additional supplemental essays, and more. Through CMPI’s College Application Study Hall in the 2025/26 school year, CMPI seniors walked through each step of the application process, including filling out the Common Application, FAFSA, and CSS profiles, with a dedicated music school admissions expert. This same expert provided individualized written feedback on each senior’s college essay draft. CMPI student navigators and mentors provide additional support with this important and time-consuming step of the process.
Recording Pre-screening Auditions
Pre-screening audition videos are a unique feature of music school admissions that serve as a preliminary evaluation of a student’s level of playing before students are invited to live final auditions with faculty. Making suitable recordings is an art in and of itself, but CMPI simplifies this process by providing each twelfth grader with recording time in a professional recital hall and support from a professional recording engineer. Seniors only need to prepare their repertoire, and come to the recording session ready to perform. CMPI’s recording engineer records, masters, and edits each student’s pre-screening video, providing drafts to each family and private teacher in advance of the prescreening submission deadline.
Audition Preparation
CMPI fellows, whether or not they ultimately commit to majoring in music, prepare for college auditions each program year through numerous performance opportunities in recitals and semi-annual juries. In twelfth grade, fellows perform their college audition repertoire in senior studio classes (in which they exchange peer feedback), mock auditions with local college faculty, recitals, and masterclasses. CMPI aims to simulate the experience of live music school auditions so that fellows can develop an understanding of how their playing changes when they’re under the pressure of an audition.
Audition Travel
Once CMPI seniors have submitted their prescreening auditions prior to December 1, they enjoy only a few week’s respite before they receive pre-screening decisions and must begin to plan for traveling to colleges for their final auditions. It is not uncommon for seniors to be invited to live auditions all over the country, from the west coast to the east coast, the south, and everywhere in between. CMPI assists fellows not only with travel and lodging expenses, but also books travel on behalf of fellows, arranges host families with partner programs, and makes connections to CMPI alumni who attend schools at which CMPI’s current seniors will audition. Our hope is that CMPI’s seniors will be able to cast a wide net and audition for schools based on their interests and preferences, rather than limit their options due to cost and logistical challenges.
Negotiating Financial Aid
Once auditions are completed – in some cases lasting through mid to late March – the journey is almost, but not completely, over. Fellows begin to receive their admission decisions by April 1, and begin to receive their financial aid awards at the same time. CMPI trains its fellows to understand that these initial financial aid awards are not the end of the story, but rather a starting point for negotiation. We help students prepare to submit financial aid appeals for schools at which they are admitted, but need more assistance to be able to attend. While this process is outlined in College Prep for Musicians, CMPI provides real-time workshops on this subject, along with individualized support and coaching from CMPI student navigators and our dedicated college consultant through this year’s College Application Study Hall. While this process can be stressful and nerve-wracking, we have helped fellows successfully increase (often substantially) their financial aid awards, sometimes bringing the seemingly unattainable within reach.
Putting It All Together
Even with all of CMPI’s support – more robust than ever this year through our College Application Study Hall – the college application process is always challenging and sometimes stressful. While no program, not even CMPI, can fully mitigate the stress of this process, CMPI does aim to provide enough support for our fellows to be able to focus on refining their audition repertoire and demonstrating the hard work they have put into mastering their instruments.
Continue to follow our e-newsletter for updates on the audition journeys of CMPI’s 9 seniors in the 2025/26 school year!
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