<p>I am currently a junior and searching for colleges. I am very active musically. I play violin semi-professionally with the local philharmonic and chamber orchestra. It is something I definitely want to continue in college. I am also very academically motivated, and I think a medical/scientific research career is more viable for me. That being said, does anyone know of any colleges that are strong academically in the sciences/pre-med and also have good violin professors/performing groups?</p>
<p>I would assume any of the top universities with top music programs would do. Like:</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon University
Indiana University-Bloomington
Johns Hopkins University
Northwestern University
Oberlin College
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Rochester
Yale University</p>
<p>I am sure I am missing a lot since I know almost nothing about Music, but there must always be a beginning right?</p>
<p>Also add Case Western, Boston University, Rice and Lawrence University to the list. </p>
<p>You will have to look at all these programs carefully. At some of these schools it is very difficult or impossible to study with the top teachers if you are not a music major. At Oberlin, for example, if you are not a performance major, you cannot study with a professor until after your freshman year. You have to study with an upper leve student instead. However, at Rochester, you can audition at Eastman for lessons, and if you are good enough you can be assigned to one of the professors if they have room in the studio. Just be aware that at all of these schools, performance majors have first pick at everything. Schools with conservatory programs often have 2 orchestras - one for the performance majors and one for non-majors. It is pretty much impossible to get into the performance major orchestra if you are not in that program. However, there are often very good musicians attracted to the schools with excellent performance programs who are not performance majors so the non-performance orchestras are often pretty decent.</p>
<p>Add USC Thornton.</p>
<p>Add McGill University and University of Toronto.</p>
<p>At Carnegie Mellon, you can pursue a BSA (Bachelor of Science and Arts) Degree. This is basically a double degree between the Mellon College of Science and one of the schools within College of Fine Arts (School of Music for you). You have to be accepted into both colleges (which would mean an audition with the School of Music) in order to participate in the BSA. Both the School of Music and the College of Science are top programs in their respective fields...they are both incredibly well respected.</p>
<p>Check this out for more info:
<a href="http://www.cmu.edu/interdisciplinary/bsa/bsa.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.cmu.edu/interdisciplinary/bsa/bsa.html</a></p>
<p>Bard College.</p>
<p>defintely look into CMU</p>
<p>rhs06:</p>
<p>A couple of things. It makes sense that you are looking at schools with strong academics and good music departments. It makes sense because you want to have the best of both. However, these schools will obviously reserve the premier teachers for people who are majoring in music. Most schools like Indiana, U. Illinois, have graduate students (who are very talented musicians and often great teachers) teach the non-majors. (Shennie pretty much discussed this.)</p>
<p>By your original post, I can tell that you are doing a scientific research major because you feel it has a better career path, not necessarily because you want to do it. If you feel that you <em>could</em> have a career in music, I would definitely recommend choosing a variety of schools that offer a five year dual degree program. It's not easy, but you'll like what you're doing.</p>
<p>I went to college with pretty much the same intentions. Instead of applying as a piano or composition major, I applied to schools as an engineering major because the career prospects were better and my parents (especially my Dad who is an engineer) didn't think that a musical career was realistic. I eventually quit the engineering program and received a Bachelor of Music in Piano Studies.</p>
<p>Definitely ask the important questions about dual degree, violin teachers at your college visits. Good luck.</p>
<p>Jon</p>
<p>Thank you very much for your input.</p>
<p>jon. i too am struggling between being a music major and choosing something more career oriented. im going to binghamton in the fall. i was curious as to what you are doing now with ur music degree. </p>
<p>p.s im a drummer!</p>
<p>I would highly recommend Yale, Harvard, and Columbia to someone in your position. Each offers excellent ensembles, a fine department, and a vibrant musical life for the non-pre-professional student. Vanderbilt might be a good choice; though its ensembles are based in Blair, the music school, they are certainly less competitive to get in to than orchestras at Oberlin, BU, Mich, Northwestern, etc, and Blair is much smaller than those music schools.
If you're interested in a dual degree, though, I can tell you that I personally like the dual degree programs and the violin teachers at CIM-CWRU, JHU-Peabody, Bard (very competitive), Michigan, and BU, where I am going in the fall to study with Bayla Keyes. Indiana is a wonderful school, but their joint (not really dual) degree program is quite poorly set up. Come to that, so is BU's, but I have to pull for it a bit, after all!
donpon11: I tend to think that music is about as career oriented a degree program as you can follow. It may not guarantee you a job, but everything is focused on professional preparation.</p>
<p>Do you plan on majoring in music or pursuing a career in music? In that case, you should look into conservatories (or schools of music) with respectable educational counterparts--ie: Oberlin, Rice, Northwestern, Peabody, Michigan. </p>
<p>If you are planning on seriously pursuing music in college but majoring in/pursuing something else, look instead at good schools that also have good music programs. Williams and Rice are two great bets here. While Oberlin has great academics and great music, it is difficult to excell as a non-conservatory musician enrolled in the college. Yale, Harvard, Columbia are all schools with great music grad programs, but be wary of their undergrad offerings--Yale in particular has great grad-level programs that are hard to take advantage of as an undergraduate.</p>
<p>I would recommend that you research the availability of music resources and opportunities at any of the schools that have premier departments. I can tell you that CMU is not open at all with performing arts courses or venues. In my opinion, the LACs and the schools that do not have conservatory level programs are much better about opening up their resources to non music majors whereas some schools even restrict things to specific performance majors.</p>
<p>realistically, if the school has a conservatory level program (Rochester/Eastman, JHU/Peabody etc), the chances of you getting heavily into the ensembles and lessons will be very small.</p>
<p>It can be done, but these schools will be full of people looking to play professionally, and they will not be open to letting other people in who are doing it "for fun." It might also be quite hard to make friends if you are taking someone's spot who is more or less as good as you who wants to have music as their profession.</p>
<p>If you have no desire to be a music major, make sure the people at the school know that when you talk to them, because you will want an honest assessment of where you stand at the school. If they say basically that there won't be any room for you since you aren't a major, you should look elsewhere.</p>
<p>Reiterating what SoccerGuy said... At Rice, for example, only music majors are allowed in the symphony orchestra, and while the non-majors orchestra also exists, it's not nearly as incredible as the majors orchestra and is conducted by graduate students... talented graduate students, for sure (one who just graduated got a job as the assistant conductor of the Cleveland Symph Orch), but graduate students. If you do decide to go with a school that has an affiliated conservatory, ask about their policy on non-majors auditioning for the conservatory orchestra, and ask whether or not you can get an audition.</p>
<p>Someone said something about non-majors receiving private lessons from graduate students... This isn't necessarily a bad thing. My roommate at Rice, a violin performance major who had to drop back from the BMus program to the BA program due to injuries, was taught by a phenomenally supportive and talented grad student who is now a violinist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra...! Needless to say, her being 'banished' to a grad student teacher turned out to be one of the best things that happened to her. Don't rule out taking lessons from a graduate student at one of the more prestigious conservatory schools simply because they're graduate students.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Excellent posts here. Once you have sorted out your plans for music study and checked out access to ensembles and lessons if those plans have you a non-major, you might think about scheduling visits around concerts and rehearsals. To follow the Rice example, you might find that the non-major orchestra is exactly what you are looking for, and offers enough opportunity. Or not.</p>
<p>The advantage of a school without a big-time conservatory i.e. Yale, Vanderbilt, Harvard, Columbia, is that you could play in an orchestra that includes students who will be top-tier pro players, but is not limited to such students.</p>
<p>Regarding Jamimom's suggestion, a good example would be Furman. Check out their website.</p>
<p>Two schools that have excellent music programs and are very welcoming to non-performance majors are Lawrence University and St. Olaf.</p>