While many seniors rushed to fill out last-minute essays, CommonApp questions, and waited anxiously to hear back from colleges and universities, a few students were flying around the country to perform in front of the finest music educators in the country or crafting robust art portfolios.
Senior Samantha Cheunkarndee spent much of her time this admissions cycle in auditoriums across the States. Cheunkarndee, now committed to Michigan, has been playing the violin since she was five.
“I started violin when YouTube was getting really big, and I would watch a lot of YouTube videos of violinists and kid prodigies. I guess that kind of inspired me. I think I also saw people around with violin cases and I was just curious,” she said.
Having started so young, studying violin performance in college has always been part of the plan for Cheunkarndee.
“I’ve been planning on it for a while. I tried out some other things just to see if there was anything outside of violin I wanted to do, but I think violin is the most logical path for me right now,” she said.
Senior Dorothy Nemeth applied for musical performance as a cellist. Nemeth, who is committed to _____, applied to schools that supported her interests both in music and political science. For her, that meant universities with associated conservatories.
“Because I want a double major, I’ve been mostly auditioning for universities that have either music schools or conservatories attached, places like Oberlin, Michigan, Rice, and UCLA,” Nemeth said.
This presented a challenge for Nemeth: to be able to pursue both of her passions, she would need to be admitted to two separate programs at the same school.
“Michigan, for example, I would have to get into the music school and into the language, the LSA program,” Nemeth said.
As she looked for schools to apply to, Cheunkarndee looked to the faculty list to guide her decision.
“There were definitely teachers that are just incredible, and I would have loved to work with. It’s just hard because there’s only one teacher and they can only have so many spots, so they’re very competitive,” Cheunkarndee said. “There’s this teacher at the New England Conservatory called Miriam Fried. She’s a little scary, but I watched one of her master classes this summer and she’s really amazing. Also, there’s this teacher at the Curtis Institute of Music named Ida Kavafian. Her and her sister are known for just being incredible teachers and her students are so amazing.”
The audition process begins when applicants send in screenings, which are recordings that admissions officers use to sort candidates in December. After this first round, approved applicants audition live, which usually takes place between January and March.
Live auditions can be stressful, Nemeth said. She emphasized the importance of practicing before auditions and getting plenty of rest.
“UCLA could have gone better. I traveled there and back and auditioned all in the same day, so I was pretty tired and burnt out when I got there,” she said.
Arts applications aren’t limited to music performance. Senior Caitlin Boothby sent in an architectural portfolio to colleges.
“I really loved art, but I also really liked math and I wanted to combine those two and architecture was a nice blend of that,” she said.
To gain experience and build a portfolio, Boothby attended a summer program at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly SLO), a school renowned for its architecture and design programs.
“The great part about the program is that you start making your portfolio there. They provided you with templates and presentations of good examples of strong portfolios,” she said. Boothby is now committed to _____.
With her architecture degree, Boothby has a very specific plan in mind.
“My dream is to be a Disney Imagineer and design Disney theme parks. I would love to work on queue lines. I think queue lines have a lot of potential right now–they’re a little boring, but I think there’s a lot of room to make them engaging for guests and make them more interactive,” she said.
