While his peers go out to get lunch, Noel Medrano goes to the practice room every break between classes to improve his playing technique.
This persistence to perfect his music has made Medrano a meticulous band director, a job he takes on during the summer at his old high school, John H. Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley, and a job he hopes to have as soon as he graduates from UCLA this spring.
It was this same persistence that got Medrano into UCLA – on his third try.
Medrano, a sixth-year music education student, applied to UCLA three times, first for freshman year, then for transfer admittance, before finally being accepted into the university’s music education program three years ago.
His first audition didn’t land an acceptance letter, so he went to Los Angeles Valley College for the interim. Medrano decided to apply a second time, but after his first audition he found that playing only percussion in marching band form was a disadvantage. During auditions, he had to play in orchestra style, which requires changing the technical aspects of his performance.
Approaching his second audition, Medrano said he started to feel like applying again was hopeless since he had not had time to improve to the standard of the other applicants.
“When you go to the audition, you see all the other percussionists warming up in the practice rooms and you hear the other players,” Medrano said. “People who had a nice set of sticks and mallets.”
He received his second rejection letter in the mail in May his second year at Valley College. Soon after, he joined the Filipino-American Symphony Orchestra and Valley College marching band, started taking private lessons and signed up as an assistant band director at his old high school in hopes of improving himself.
“After rehearsal or at breaks he would come into the band room and play,” said Stephen Isaacs, Medrano’s high school band director. “He was always very positive, no matter what is happening.”
Medrano decided to apply to UCLA for the third and final time, saying he knew he had improved enough to be accepted. Leaving all nerves at the door, Medrano entered the UCLA percussion ensemble practice room that he had seen twice before.
“I wasn’t as nervous, I wanted to show how much I had worked to improve,” Medrano said. “(The audition) started over again but I had the advantage of knowing how it was going to go.”
When he read the words congratulating him on his acceptance in 2012, three years after starting Valley College, a smile ran across his face and he darted to the phone to tell his parents.
“You just keep on going. (There are) these days you are really tired, but it’s something you have to do,” Medrano said. “For me, I know what I want to do after I graduate. … I know it will pay off in the end.”