He auditioned for several schools(including VT and JMU) and was accepted to all...but he loved the music folks at GMU, and they 'made it worth our while' financially. He lives on campus....even though we live 15 mins from Fairfax. And, he has been able to 'gig' around Metro DC and get paid!

There is no doubt that the VT experience is very different from the GMU experience(my wife and I are both hokies, and my oldest is a VT student now). At least for music, my son felt much better about GMU and JMU over VT....

Mr. McKee is a very nice guy...we enjoyed conversing with him....but for him, the marching band is simply a mild distraction during a football game...which is fine...my strong guess is that this is what he is paid to do.(among other stuff he does)