Applying to Bay Area music schools

Bay Area music programs fall into four buckets, and the application is nearly a different animal in each. Sorting yourself early saves months of preparing the wrong thing.

• Conservatory: the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in the Civic Center. Audition-first; you apply to a studio and a teacher, not just a school. Classical degrees plus a Roots, Jazz and American Music track.
• Jazz school: the California Jazz Conservatory in downtown Berkeley. Small and degree-granting, with a large community-education side. The audition is the whole game.
• University departments: UC Berkeley and Stanford. Academic BA programs. Admission is on the general application, not an audition; ensembles and lessons are auditioned once you are there.
• State universities: San Jose State, SF State and Cal State East Bay. You apply through the CSU system, then audition for the department separately.
• Community colleges: City College of San Francisco, Laney in Oakland, Diablo Valley, College of San Mateo, Foothill, De Anza, Chabot, Berkeley City College. Open enrollment, auditions only for ensemble placement, and a heavily used transfer path.

These dates drift a little year to year; treat them as the shape of the calendar and confirm the current ones on each admissions page.

• SFCM: application and prescreen typically due around the start of December for fall entry, live auditions in winter. Some instruments and voice require a prescreen; others go straight to a live round.
• CJC: rolling admissions with priority deadlines; auditions in person or by video. Early matters more for scholarship money than for a seat.
• UC Berkeley: the UC application closes at the end of November. No music-specific deadline because there is no music-specific admission.
• CSU campuses: Cal State Apply runs early October to end of November for the following fall. Department auditions are scheduled separately, usually late winter or early spring. Watch two calendars.
• Community colleges: apply any time, but priority registration for fall opens in spring and the popular ensembles and theory sections fill.
• Aid: the FAFSA opens the fall before you enroll, and California's Cal Grant has an early-March deadline that does not move. Missing it costs more than missing an audition.

A prescreen decides whether you get a live audition slot. It is judged fast, by tired people, in a batch of dozens. The goal is not to impress; it is to give them no reason to stop watching.

• Record exactly what the list for your instrument asks for, in that order. Two contrasting works means two, not three.
• One continuous take per piece. No edits, no cuts between movements, no replaced audio. Panels can tell, and some schools disqualify edited videos outright.
• Single fixed camera, hands and face visible, a decent room. A phone on a tripod in a quiet church beats a multi-cam shoot in a bad-sounding rehearsal space.
• Slate each piece in one sentence, test the audio first, and deliver in exactly the format and platform the school names.

Every program publishes a list by instrument, and the list is the assignment. Within it, pick pieces you can play cleanly on a bad day over pieces you can play brilliantly on a good one. A panel would rather hear a well-prepared sonata movement than a shaky concerto.

Classical applicants are expected to show contrast: different periods and tempi, something technical and something that has to sing. Singers will need multiple languages. Composers submit complete, legible scores with recordings rather than performing.

Jazz auditions, whether at CJC, SFCM's jazz track or a state school, usually run a medium-tempo standard, a ballad, a blues, something up-tempo, and improvisation over the changes, sometimes with sight-reading and a short interview about your listening. If a rhythm section is provided, be ready to count it off and lead it; if not, bring clean backing tracks. Whatever the style, run the whole program in order for someone who is not your teacher at least three times before the real date.

Readers see hundreds of essays that open with a childhood memory of a record and knowing, in that moment, that music was the only path. Do not write that one. Write the essay only you could write, about only this school.

• Name the teacher you want to study with and say why, in terms of their playing or their students, not their bio.
• Name the specific ensembles or courses you would join and tie them to something you have already done.
• Say what you want to be doing five years after graduation in concrete terms: orchestral player, session musician, teacher with a studio, bandleader.
• Include one honest thing you are not yet good at and how the program addresses it. It is more convincing than a list of strengths.

Sticker price at a private conservatory is high and almost nobody pays it in full. Merit awards at SFCM and CJC are tied directly to the audition: the same fifteen minutes decides both admission and money. Ask admissions what a typical award looks like for your instrument; they will usually give a range.

State schools cost a fraction of that for residents. Community colleges are close to free for residents who qualify for the California College Promise Grant, and two years at Laney or CCSF followed by a transfer to San Jose State or SF State is one of the cheapest routes to a music degree anywhere; plenty of working Bay Area players came up that way. File the FAFSA or the California Dream Act application regardless of what you expect, since some merit awards require it.

The essay part sinks or swims on its first lines. Two things worth reading before you draft: how to answer the “why this school” question without flattery, and how to open a personal statement so a reader keeps going past the first sentence.