A cappella group performing on stage
The A Cappella Blog

A cappella scholarships?

Measure for Measure

In Measure for Measure, an A Cappella Blog contributor takes a look at both sides of a controversial issue in collegiate a cappella.

The exciting nature of collegiate a cappella makes many groups the best entertainment going on their campus, not to mention impressive ambassadors for their college when they perform elsewhere. Given this positive impact the groups can have, colleges and their music departments should start thinking seriously about recruiting or even offering scholarships for performers for their a cappella communities.

True: With each passing year, a cappella groups are becoming increasingly well-established entities at colleges and universities across the US. What’s more, there has been continuous growth in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards, and similar competitions and opportunities to perform outside of a group’s home campus. With these opportunities to perform, groups have the opportunity to put their music departments, and, indeed, their broader schools on the map.
With all of this being said, collegiate a cappella is growing more and more similar to a collegiate sport. In recognition of this fact, why not try to attract the best talent to your institution? Some schools with top music programs already hold auditions for admission. You can broaden this interest with an emphasis on a cappella—maybe even recruiting out of top-performing high school groups.

False: You simply can’t recruit for a cappella performers the way you would for other talent. For one collegiate a cappella is generally not as organized as a sport or academic department. There are a variety of groups, with varying degrees of how official their standing is in the college community, make it exceedingly difficult to meet their interests in recruiting, or to even justify doing so.

Furthermore, when it comes to justifying recruitment efforts and scholarships, you have to consider the bottom line. Recruiting a basketball star will, ideally, help your team win more games—bolstering ticket, concessions and merchandise sales. Recruiting a top student will, ideally, advance your research or maybe lead to having a well-established alumni who can help attract more top students, add to your school’s prestige, and maybe bolster the school’s endowment. Unfortunately, a cappella doesn’t work quite the same way. There’s not a lot of profit for an institution to make off of a cappella. While it’s nice for the schools that host champions and award winners to say that their a cappella groups are the best in the world, in the end, these distinctions don’t mean much to anyone outside of the collegiate a cappella community. A cappella doesn’t support the bottom line, which inherently limits how much a college can support it.

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