My daughter is thinking of applying for a choral scholarship.

Any advice as to useful things to do in preparation, please?

Attend any choral information days that they offer. You do get useful information about applying. - such as putting a long string of colleges that you'd be prepared to go to as a choral scholar.

If your daughter has any particular college in mind see whether they will offer a pre-audition interview.

Has she done the Eton Choral Courses or applied for NYCGB? A lot of it is about who you know but these would stand her in good stead.the RSCM also runs singing holidays that are set in famous cathedrals.

Be prepared: I believe the deadline for scholarship applications is before the normal Oxbridge deadline; if that's still so, personal statement, refs, etc., that need or benefit from school input are best sorted as far as possible this term rather than come September.

EDIT: sorry, just realised this is in the 'voice' forum - you probably didn't need this earnest parent's input! Good luck though

Yes, I think you have to apply by mid-September, whereas the deadline for other applications is mid-October. The choral scholarships open day this year is 3 May, so if your daughter will be applying this Autumn it might be worth going to that and finding out more about it.

I was just about to post a very similar thread
I'm thinking of applying too. There's an open day next Thursday which should be useful.
I haven't done NYCGB or any of the Eton courses, purely because dates have never worked out. However, I am in my eighth year in a church choir, singing 2-3 services a week and I've done all of the RSCM exams.
From what I've heard from friends who have gone through the process, sight singing is essential, and so are good aural skills. They don't necessarily look for trained voices, but I suppose it varies from college to college.

Can you apply for more than one college or do you have to pick one in the way you do with academic subjects?

I think you can apply for 10 (?) colleges for choral scholarships - I know of several people who have choral scholarships at different colleges to their academic/home college.

I had no idea that was possible. I assumed you could apply for multiple coal scholarships but you had to sing for the college you eventually attended.

Coal scholarships... for descendants of miners? Yippee - opportunity knocks

Oh - and I don't think so. As far as I understand it (?) you can be 'at' one and sing at another - no idea how common it is and whether it's less/more common with the 'high-profile' college choirs. Met a delightful young man some years ago on an open day who was offered a choral scholarship at a certain college, but was then turned down for an academic place - but kept the scholarship and ended up at another college where, when we met him, he was President of the JCR. The energy of these young people leaves me humbled. There will be ways of finding out more.

You are advised to apply for more than one college - I'm not sure how many spaces there are on the form. This is the kind of thing you are advised on the choral open days.

My daughter applied first to Trinity, who didn't want her for a choral scholar. So she went and sang in front of a lot of the choral directors (or whatever they are called) or their representatives for other colleges. She was offered a choral place at Selwyn which is where she had her academic interview. However, Selwyn passed her on to the next place on her list (Queens') where she was offered an academic place. So, nothing daunted, she asked them whether she could have a choral scholarship as well, please, and they said yes.

It is a tough process (or at least she found it so). One of her friends only put one college down on the "choral" list and in the end was refused on academic grounds. So he waited a year, applied for a different subject and got in. But there are always places available in colleges for choral scholars and you can apply in the second year, once you've settled in and know what's what (and not necessarily to your own college). There are also spaces for good singers in different college choirs, and you don't have to be a choral scholar for that. Then there are all sorts of other choirs to join if you like (the mind boggles, but it's a lot of fun). Daughter is in her last year now, and being in the college choir has been a very sociable activity.

One of my former students read music at Pembroke but sang at Trinity.

Blimey, amazing combination, well done him

Susie: purely out of interest, was the transfer from Selwyn to Queens' done via the choral scholarship network, or through the winter pool, or something else? Makes the simple (HA!) academic interview process seem a walk in the park (I wish)

Winter pool I think. Daughter felt the academic interview process was rather a walk in the park compared with the choral awards process.

I have a recording from Clare college in the Christopher Robinson days which is stunning and really makes the most of its lady sopranos and altos. If they're still that broadminded I would plump for that one (if you could stand the Rutter connection - he's not for everyone, like marmite it seems)! Also if it would help I have a copy of the December BBC Music magazine which has an article about the choirs in Cambridge and their current Ds of M.

It is a 'her'.

Oops, showing my age

The Cambridge University website says:

"All those who receive an academic offer in January will be asked if they wish to apply for a Choral Award. No Awards will be considered or made in advance of the completion of academic assessment of applicants.

Applicants wishing to be considered for an Award should submit the Choral Award Application Form by 15 February 2013 at the latest. Some Colleges may use an earlier deadline. Please see College websites and information for details. Late applications will not be considered."

This doesn't seem. to me, quite consistent with various things said above. Perhaps the procedure has changed, or is the above inaccurate, or have I misunderstood?

If that's what it says, it's changed since a couple of years ago. Me, I didn't think to check before posting, sorry. Sounds more like the instrumental award scheme schedule now, though that isn't college specific (or wasn't... don't anyone take my word for it). Takes the heat off this summer - but piles it on next winter term I suppose.

The only thing I would say is that (at least for the instrumental scheme), you can occasionally miss being prompted when you get an offer, and in the excitement of the offer you can miss that you've been missed if you get my drift. It doesn't mean you aren't welcome to apply, but you do need to remember to apply by the deadline/ask what to do/check relevant webpage, if by any chance they don't ask you in the offer package.

Shame we can't flag your message as important - hope everyone relying on previous advice on here is still reading the thread

EDIT: wonders if organ scholarship application process has changed too...

The information I found is here:

http://www.study.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/a...rds/choral.html

Daughter went to choral open day this week, and the procedure has indeed changed this year - auditions will be held after academic offers from now on (apart from Kings and John's who are possibly sticking with the old system for now).

Good. I hope your daughter found the day helpful.

Thanks, yes, she came back very enthused about it all. Have to put it all to one side now and concentrate on A2s in a matter of weeks. If the grades come out OK she'll go for it in the Autumn!

I suspect that the website has been changed fairly recently, as before I posted above, I did check the university site. At that time the dates were all for last year's awards, but there was no indication that the system might be changing.

I'd second what Listener has posted about getting missed for instrumental awards. BerkshireSon wasn't sent an award application form despite having ticked the appropriate box. It wasn't a big problem, as when he contacted the college, they sent out a form straight away, but it's something to watch out for.

Your son was organized... It's a big problem if it doesn't dawn on you until a few days before the deadline... but it was only a few more white hairs. Entropy rules wherever daughter is (& in that she takes after me)

Just desperate to try for an award! His STEP results weren't good enough anyway in the end for him to get a place, but at that point clarinet playing was very high on his priority list. Less so now, I think (five years on); earning a living looms large as the end of university approaches, and becoming a chartered accountant looks likely to be more lucrative than clarinet!

Sounds good - unless things have changed *dramatically* I don't think King's or St John's accept female voices anyway. It might well be that those of us who've been through the system either as applicants or parents are considering our own experiences instead of "what's currently happening".

In some ways it makes more sense for them to hold the auditions after the academic offers have been made - I think there were some colleges where you could apply for choral scholarships once you were in your first or even second year there - although it does mean that some people will "waste" a slot on their UCAS form on one of Oxford or Cambridge when they would have no intention of applying there if the couldn't have a choral scholarship. That said, I don't know whether you can apply through UCAS to universities for Music (possibly with choral scholarship applications to the right places) and separately through CUKAS (?) to conservatoires?

Anyway, good luck and I hope that it all goes well for her. What subject is she applying for?

CUKAS is a separate system, so it's possible to apply through UCAS as well and I know several people who have done both, and gone either way depending on the offers they received.

Daughter is hoping to read Natural Sciences. A2s start this coming week.... I can't wait for it all to be over. The emotional yo-yoing depending on the outcome of the latest practice paper is driving me round the bend!!

On a more mercenary note what are these scholarships worth ?

Commiserations. Son is going through same process, although not for Oxbridge, but for another uni that's asking for 3As. I've been marking his biology papers as he's being doing them. It's fairly nerve-racking. (Not sure of spelling there - brain has turned to mush! )

Daughter's choral award was worth free formal dinners every evensong, and free singing lessons, and some amount of cash - possibly ?100 a year/term (can't remember). Anyway, she's just done her finals so fingers crossed there, too.

My choral award was for a similar amount of money (about ?100 per term I think), but the free singing lessons were with a teacher who charged ?35 an hour, and I had ten of those a term (one in the week before term started, one every week, and one in the week after term ended as we were still up to sing at various things for the college). This was in 1993-6, so he probably charges rather a lot more now...