NYSSMA could be also included in college applications and it is a great recommendation for the college acceptance. NYSSMA grade provides a standard objective that is used for acceptance of honors performance ensembles such as Nassau Music Educators Association (NMEA), All-County and Long Island String Festival Association (LISFA), Metropolitan Youth Orchestra and Gemini Youth Orchestra, and many other music camps. Moreover, the ability of performing in front of someone you don’t know will develop poise and confidence.

It gives them the opportunity to strive for the excellence, requires a mature sense of responsibility, and encourages discipline/commitment.

The NYSSMA solo experience can be a wonderful motivation for the music students. They listen to each student’s performance with a graded selection from the NYSSMA manual, a short sight reading selection, and a prescribed scale, for instrumentalists

Ask your school music teacher (or private teacher, if you have one) about whether or not you should attempt a Level 6 this year.Each spring, the New York State School Music Association (NYSSMA) sponsors festivals across the state in which the students have on opportunity to perform solos and small ensembles (duets, trios, etc.) for an impartial adjudicator – usually a music educator or a professional musician from other areas. If you're just doing NYSSMA for fun and to get performance experience, then a 93 is a fine score, and you're definitely not a 'really bad' clarinet player. Obviously, a score in the 90s represents a well-played solo, but if you're looking to be in contention for All-State next year, you should know that you will most likely need to get a 100 on a Level 6 (and even THEN you can be denied). How 'good' a NYSSMA score is really depends on what you're looking to get out of it. I know quite a few kids now pursuing music degrees at top conservatories who got scores of 97s and 98s on their All-State solos (and therefore didn't make Conference All-State), and I also know kids who got 100s that barely practice their instruments and have no intention of majoring in music. There's a lot of debate as to whether or not NYSSMA scores are a good indicator of musical ability.

Nyssma level 6 sight reading