Royal Birmingham Conservatoire

[Barnaclebear]

My son has been offered a place at RBC to study classical vocal. He is still waiting to hear outcome of other auditions but wants to accept Birmingham. Is it best to do this as soon as possible so that we can secure accommodation etc? Does anyone have any experience of accepting offers and then what needs to be done afterwards in terms of applying for funding etc? Thank you so much for any words of wisdom and experience!

Congratulations! We are going through this process too. My daughter received an offer from Guildhall today. It came with an offer handbook that had lots of specific information about when/how to apply for funding and when to apply for accommodation. I don't think anything has to be done before mid-January. Did he get anything like that as an attachment to his offer letter? My daughter was advised not to accept any offers until she had an agreement to study with a teacher she wanted to work with, as the right teacher can be more important than the institution. Has he done consultation lessons with various teachers? Also, if any other institutions offered him a scholarship, would that change his mind about RBC? I'm not sure if there's any advantage to accepting an offer before the deadline, but would be interested to learn more about it as well!

Thanks so much for your reply and congratulations for your daughters success! DS also has an audition at Guildhall in a few weeks time, it would be wonderful if he is successful but financially London would be difficult. I haven’t seen an offer booklet from RBC but my son is being fiercely independent about the whole thing.
I haven’t heard about needing to do consultation lessons at all but makes sense that students need to strike a rapport.
Thank you so much - the whole process is so complicated!

Well done to both. Just jumping in to ask how you can tell what sort of offer has been received? UCAS conservatoire site doesn’t seem to say GC or VC or any code that they say they use for the offer types

Oh that's a good question Juno300, the only response my daughter has received so far is Guildhall and they don't use UCAS, so she got an offer letter via email. Barnaclebear I don't have any knowledge of RBC specifically but I think a lot of conservatoires have offer holder days to help them make their decision, and around then they are offered some free consultation lessons to help them find someone to study with. I think they have to give their answer by 31 January, so all these things happen before that.

Of course, yes, Guildhall are separate. I expect we will find out in due course but strange the VC/GC codes are not currently visible on the UCAS page.

Hello @Barnaclebear - I saw this thread a while ago and have come back to it now to comment! My son has just accepted an offer from Birmingham and is - hopefully - just about to fill in his accommodation form. Has your son accepted?

If so: I've noticed from the website that one of the nearby halls (Jennens Court) isn't available in 2024/25. So I'm wondering what is the most logical one to put down as a second choice (assuming you need a second choice). His first will be University Locks which is the one he looked at when he visited, and is really close by (with practice rooms).

Obviously if your son isn't going there. please ignore!!

I'm at RBC now, so probably see them around, although my course is through the uni. I guess I don't need to tell you about accommodation but I think you should beware that one is under investigation. This is after a tutor attempted to call in the middle of the night and one would not accept calls. Other things happened too, like another student trying scrap with one and one had to call a lecturer to get the student away. However, it has all been turned on one and now being double victimised. Completely fitted up. So, if your child does end up in a similar situation and bound to secrecy or having to suffer penalty, be supportive of your child.