<p>I was just wondering how much talent factors into acceptance into music programs at schools vs academics. If your academics are less than steller but you are quite talented, how willing would various universities be to accept you. What is the average wiggle room in GPA and test scores.</p>
<p>Assuming that you are talking about music schools (not just departments), most schools don't require good grades. The audition is king and controls the decisions almost completely. There are a few notable exceptions to this: Northwestern and Rice are both known for requiring better grades than other music schools. You have to be a good student too for those two schools. That being said, if you're playing an instrument that they really need more of and you're really, really good, they too make exceptions. For the average Joe violinist, you will need to be a strong student for Rice or Northwestern. </p>
<p>At Michigan, there is an academic screening before they allow you to audition, but it is my impression that they do not require the same academic level they do for their liberal arts students.</p>
<p>At most other music schools that I'm aware of (Oberlin, Peabody, CIM, Eastman, NEC, Julliard, Manhattan School, etc), they will take you if they like your audition.</p>
<p>At DS's university, he had to be in the "ball park" for academic admissions. If the music department (a conservatory program within a university) REALLY wanted a student based on their audition, they could advocate with admissions but only so far. The student had to be at least close to the admissions standards of the school. The student still had to fulfill the core university requirements..oh...and pass them.</p>
<p>Re: U of Michigan...when DS applied to colleges (rolling admissions at the time), the students HAD to be accepted academically before their auditions were scheduled. We were not given the impression that their academic standard was lowered at ALL for prospective music majors. DS didn't apply there because his first SAT scores weren't in their range (second ones were quite good but he had made his college application decisions by then). The adcom that came to our region basically told us that the acceptance was not any more liberal for music majors.</p>
<p>I'll add the caveat that for most conservatory/conservatory level performance programs with the exception of those like Rice, Northwestern and others mentioned, it is really the audition provided you meet the minimum academic standards for the specific school or program.</p>
<p>Where this falls apart is for majors in the academic music disciplines, like music ed, history, music therapy. Here academics will play an equal if not greater role in conjunction with the audtion.</p>
<p>Music departments (as opposed to stand alone conservatories/conservatory level schools) within LAC's, universities tend to treat academics as the major criteria for admissions.</p>
<p>The amount of leeway varies with each individual institution.</p>
<p>It varies by school. One way to look at it is that you probably don't have to be in the top 25%, but you should not be too far below the lower 25-50%. This is important to most universities since you also have to take some kind of general or distribution liberal arts courses, too. If you are too far off the norm, the classes may not suit and they want you to pass. That said, agree with stringfollies there are exceptions, but you have to be very high performance. Remember, there will be really talented students with high academics competing for the spots. BTW - having good grades and SATs can also open doors to academic merit awards, too. </p>
<p>If you do not want that, then more of a conservatory would be better along the lines of the conservatories stringfollies lists. They are ones not to concerned with grades and SATs.</p>
<p>Thumper -- yes it's true that you have to be admitted academically to U. Michigan to get an audition. Nevertheless, I know a couple of cases where the student was admitted to the music school, but not admitted to the liberal arts college so my conclusion is that it is not quite as competitive academically to be admitted to the music school. That being said, U. Michigan has a very high bar to begin with.</p>
<p>About University of Michigan: Each school/college within the university has its own profile of admitted students. Though students wishing to enter the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance need to be in the general ball park of U-M's student profile, the median ACT & GPA of these students is a bit less than that of LSA or Engineering. The website lists an ACT of 28 and GPA of 3.6 as the profile for School of Music, Theatre, and Dance vs. ACT of 30 and GPA of 3.9 for Engineering and a GPA of 3.8 for LSA. So potential music students may get a bit of an academic admissions "break" but not much!</p>
<p>I know that the only Conservatory that stated a GPA minimum was NEC, and that was 2.75. If other Conservatories weigh academics (and you always hear that they don't care about anything other than the audition) you don't know about it. I wonder, though, if two equally talented kids are up for consideration in the same instrument, and one has better academic stats, if that is a deciding factor?</p>
<p>This is where out HS guidance councelor failed us miserably. Very early on in the process she told my D that she could not get into many of the larger university programs unless she was in the middle or better of the GPA and tests range. I fought this and asked what about the 25% that fall below and are still accepted? Turns out for us this was a mute point since most of these schools are out of state and she did not want to be that far from home. </p>
<p>I believe there is a shot for anyone who has great talent and shows potential.</p>
<p>just a further little clarification, since I noticed that this thread has the title "academics vs talent." I'd just add that in the cases where academics are conisdered (UMich, Northwestern,Oberlin, etc) the result is really "academics AND talent" Academics alone will not help anyone get admitted to any music school; the audition is still primary.
The academic screening at some schools is quite logical, since those are all schools where music performance students must take humanities courses with other non-music students, and so must be able to manage academic requirements without struggling. Stand alone conservatories (Julliard, etc.) have their own humanities courses and can be more flexible with requirements.</p>
<p>nycm -</p>
<p>slight correction oberlin goes out of its way to distinguish its policies vis-a-vis academics from NW, U Mich and Rice. They say it isn't very important and that you don't have to take very much of an academic load if you choose not to (although it would be kind of sad to have Oberlin College available and not really use it!)</p>
<p>
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I wonder, though, if two equally talented kids are up for consideration in the same instrument, and one has better academic stats, if that is a deciding factor?
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My opinion, FWIW, is that this does happen. As some have mentioned, Juilliard uses audition primarily. They don't require or even look at SAT scores. But they do, apparently, look at HS transcripts, and require a letter of recommendation from an English/Humanities teacher. They want their kids to be literate, and capable of contributing in the classroom. The reason I know they look is that my S was given a Presidential Distinction (or something like that) upon entrance at Juilliard, for having both the highest audition score in his department as well as "outstanding" academics. </p>
<p>Conservatories value academics because it shows that the student has some intelligence. Duh. While they understand that music often takes a student away from course work that might result in lower grades, they aren't interested in giving up valuable slots to students who do not have the necessary smarts and/or discipline to pass their classes. Music school is not just orchestra and practice rooms - there are academic cores (at Juilliard it is only Humanities - but it is not "humanities-light" by any stretch), plus music academics such as history, theory, counterpoint, ear training, etc. </p>
<p>My D, who is double majoring, and has a significant core of academics required at her college, says music theory is by far her hardest course.</p>
<p>That's the long answer to, yes, music schools will look beyond academics, but they won't ignore them completely.</p>
<p>Auditions seem to be king for music programs. My kids attended a high school that was not only known for its academics but had one of the top musical programs in the country. We had a guy who was not a standout academically. I would be surprised if his GPA was even a 2.7. However, he had a KILLER voice and was in our all state choir. By the way, being a stand out at our highschool, who was known to have some top notch talent, wasn't easy. He even was a football player. </p>
<p>He got into CCM with a full ride despite his academic deficiencies. Thus, a killer audition can mean almost everything in music and voice performance at least at CCM. </p>
<p>Interestingly, he almost flunked out. I think they gave him another chance , and he will graduate.</p>
<p>My son't academics were average. But, his music academics were outstanding. The only time I thought this impinged on him was at the Purchase audtion when the teacher remarked that his SAT's were low for them, but that he could probably get around that fact with admissions. So, I'm guessing there is a push and pull involved. He was originally waitlisted there...so, maybe those SAT's mattered after all.</p>
<p>Also, you get a sense that most of the peers a student is with in these very outstanding music programs and conservatories are very good students. So, to be in academic classes with these kids must keep things at a reasonably challenging level.</p>
<p>For the BA/MM programs at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and probably Tufts as well, you would have to have the stats, etc. to get into those schools and musical ability would be frosting on the cake. Also UCLA's and UCSB's performance degrees take academic stats into consideration for admission.</p>
<p>A link to one of my posts from about a year ago <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/4280773-post5.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/4280773-post5.html</a></p>
<p>Eastman is a school that does consider academics to some extent although it is not a huge factor. I have heard them referred to as the most academic of the major conservatories. I don't know how true that is, but students with low grades will have a harder time being admitted even if they have a great audition.</p>
<p>Not exactly true at Peabody--it really helps to have taken a foreign language in high school or have very strong academic record indicating you can handle their two-year language requirement. Otherwise this could happen--you have a strong audition, but the academic department will question your scholastic record. Then your application goes back to the music faculty to scrutinize your audition. Your audition must be accepted by three out of three faculty members--some of whom may be viewing it on a DVD. If you get two out of three, then the application will be judged in "balance," which will probably not swing your way. </p>
<p>By the way, Oberlin, Eastman, Temple University, and (I believe) Indiana are programs that don't have a language requirement for BM Performance majors.</p>
<p>vanbuff - are you talking about double majoring at Peabody/JHU? If not, academics are almost completely trumped by talent at Peabody. They state that they rarely reject someone for academic reasons and the threshold GPA and SAT scores are quite low. I know kids who have been accepted with scores and GPA well below those thresholds.</p>
<p>I know that the schools appear not to care about hs grades, etc., but it is notable that every teacher my son has taken sample lessons with has asked about his grades - "what kind of student are you in school?". I'm sure they see this as a barometer of what kind of student you will be for them too - hard worker, determined, etc. Perhaps this counts for more than they say. As violadad's example shows, a remarkable gift will trump everything because they love to see great gift, but they actually might end up finding that gifted student hard to teach. So, if you are just an ordinary talent (is there such a thing?), they want to be sure it's not going to be a pain to teach you. Will you practise? Will you learn quickly and easily?</p>