<p>I am a new member and am a mother of a 16 year old piano player. We have started looking for a college or university (we are Canadian). We were considering Oberlin and have been reading quite a bit about Oberlin on your site. I was dissapointed to hear about all of the drug and alcohol use there. Our daughter is a very serious music student and is not into the party scene at all. Do you think Oberlin would be suitable for her. Are there serious music students there? Does anyone else have any other suggestions about music schools in the US or Canada?</p>
<p>Welcome to the forum, heintman: I think I know who you are!</p>
<p>Oberlin has mostly very serious music students in the music conservatory and I think that it is very safe to say that the majority of the conservatory students are not abusers of drugs and alcohol (and even in the liberal arts college, only a minority would be abusers). There are some dorms at Oberlin that are more notorious for free-spiritedness than others. I believe that Oberlin probably has a larger variety of dorm climates than many other schools do due to their co-op dorms. </p>
<p>Like almost any other school, the serious non-partying students find each other and hang out together and the partiers find each other and hang out together. Both groups usually coexist together very happily on the same campus. Conflicts which occur tend to occur between roommates, but most schools do their best to make matches between compatible people by asking the students tons of questions before assigning them to live together for a year.</p>
<p>heintzman,</p>
<p>Welcome to CC.</p>
<p>From my limited experience as the father of a recent Oberlin graduate, I can confirm that there is indeed alcohol and drug use on campus. As at nearly all colleges and universities that I have ever seen, drugs and alcohol are available to those who want them. Were your daughter to attend Oberlin, she would have no problem avoiding those substances if that is her desire. What’s more, she could have a very active social life without being pressured to get drunk or high. In addition, there is substance-free housing for those who request it if she would rather not be bothered by the occasional smell of pot coming from a dorm room down the hall, or a noisy drunk coming home late.</p>
<p>Conservatory students in particular seem to take their studies seriously. (Not that the college students don’t, it is just that on average they seem to have a little more time on their hands than Connies who have to put in lots of practice and go to their ensemble rehearsals nearly every day.) Listen to some of the recordings on the conservatory web site and I think you will be able to hear the level of commitment that students there bring to their studies.</p>
<p>Not knowing your daughter, I have no idea whether Oberlin would suit her. The people there make it pretty easy to determine whether you really like the place or really dislike it, however. The best way to tell is to visit, if she has the opportunity. If she has not already done so, she may want to read some of the blog entries at [Oberlin</a> Blogs](<a href=“http://blogs.oberlin.edu/index.shtml]Oberlin”>http://blogs.oberlin.edu/index.shtml) to get an idea of what the students there value. </p>
<p>Another resource you may find useful is a series of postings that I wrote several years back when my daughter was looking for music schools. You can find them at the beginning of the thread <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/258796-so-you-want-music-major-one-familys-experience.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/258796-so-you-want-music-major-one-familys-experience.html</a></p>
<p>Good luck to both of you in what is sure to be an exciting couple of years.</p>
<p>Thanks, violin dad…I think I know who you are, too! I am so glad you told me about this site. I have a lot to learn in the next year or so. Thank you, bassdad, I have been reading a lot of your posts and find them very helpful.</p>
<p>I am also an Oberlin parent, although my Oberlin kid is not in the con. He is currently a senior, not into the drug scene at all and only drinks occassionally. He works his tail off as a bio and math major. He loves Oberlin and has no difficulty finding activities and has a very active social life. As stated by other posters, Oberlin has a highly regarded conservatory and the students who attend are VERY serious musicians.</p>
<p>As far as recommending other schools, it is difficult without knowing the level of your child. Some of the top piano programs are at Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, New England Conservatory in Boston, and the Cleveland Institute of Music in Cleveland, OH. Understand that students from all over the world will be auditioning for spots at these schools. Oberlin MAY be slightly less competitive than the mentioned schools, but not by much. In Canada, McGill has a highly regarded music conservatory and will be worth looking at as well. </p>
<p>The best resource for schools to look at is probably your daughter’s private teacher.</p>
<p>the longevity of the “pot at Oberlin” thread on the Oberlin forum is unfortunate and may give a misleading impression. I doubt if substance use is more prevalent at Oberlin than elsewhere (I’ve heard that McGill, for example, has a big drinking culture, with the legal age limit of 18, but I imagine that it’s no worse than anywhere else). The conservatory students have to be very focused and hard-working to get through the program, and they are a serious bunch. The piano department is diverse: the best idea is to visit, take a couple of lessons and see what your daughter thinks. Two of the faculty are Canadian (Angela Chang and Alvin Chow (they’re also married).</p>
<p>An aspiring pianist from Afghanistan
Became a devout Byron Janis fan
Wrote he, Who can learn me
To master my Czerny?
Replied pianist Janis, The Mannes can.</p>
<p>Truthfully, although my son attends Mannes as a grad student, I know little about the piano faculty there, but I can say that the students I’ve met there are too busy and too broke to indulge in anything more than the occasional night out at one of the local pubs. I suspect this is probably true of many if not most conservatory students.</p>
<p>I concur that a good starting point for your search would be to ask your child’s private teacher for suggestions.</p>
<p>It is of course important to talk to you daughter’s teacher, but I wonder if a Canadian piano teacher will know much beyond some names of famous pianists on US faculties…also sometimes the best players are not the best teachers. It really does make sense to take lessons and check the chemistry between teacher and student - four years is a long time and it’s hard to change teachers.
Mannes does have a strong piano faculty. It has a small, rather poor facility, with few practice rooms, though it is well located in the upper west side of NY. Take a look at the summer programs at Mannes for piano (there’s a Beethoven Institute, for example, with some Mannes faculty, as well as a new music program, both a week long in June).</p>
<p>My son was a grad student at Mannes. It has a fabulous piano department, but he also says the school is much better for grad students than undergrads. They have about twice as many grad as undergrad students as well.</p>
<p>I have to say that a great start to learning about schools is to read the threads on CC and PM those who have intimate knowledge about various schools. We have had the same private teacher for 5 years and as much as we love her and think she is a good teacher/vocalist, she has absolutely no knowledge about what schools would be best for my D. We live in a more rural area and I don’t believe she has ever had any student go to Conservatory. Once you pick up info here about what you want in a school, start reading school websites and then go for some visits. We started in the summer of sophomore year, talking to students, looking at schools and visiting with teachers. It has made a world of difference and my D is very happy with her choices, already having done her first audition at her first choice school (which happens to be Oberlin.) My D is also a non-partier and is absolutely sure that Oberlin would be a great fit.</p>
<p>I think you have to be careful when it comes to the subject of things like drugs and alchohol and college campuses, and the reported levels of those at those schools. Like a lot of the things on this board or others, that is often based on impressions people have, or based on people who have gone to the school whose experience may not have been that positive, but also may be blown out of proportion. </p>
<p>Face it, unless you go to some really rigid religious school, drug and alchohol use are going to be present (with or without a 21 year old drinking age, as we have here in the US). Whether it is an elite ivy university, a big state school, a small state school, a small liberal arts college, etc, it doesn’t matter, it is going to be present in various levels. I went to NYU back in the 80’s, and despite all the hoopla about drinking and drugs (think about being in Greenwich Village in NYC, known as Satan’s playground to many generations of the morally upright <em>lol</em>), most kids didn’t go over the edge, and if you weren’t into that no one made you feel like an outcast (being someone who never really got into drugs, and didn’t drink all that much, I can speak from experience on that one). The worse that can happen is you might end up in a dorm room with people who want to party and such and you don’t, but that can usually be worked out. Yeah, there are certain schools where there is a reputation for rowdyism and partying out and such, but it exists all over (certain quarters of certain institutions in the ivy league are notorious for it…especially among the well off scions by reputation). </p>
<p>That said,from my increasing experience with music students going to various programs, including top notch conservatories like Juilliard, it amazes me how focused the serious music students are and how much committment it requires from them (and to get into the good programs, you have to be serious, the competition is just too fierce), and once in kids realize music takes everything to be even moderately successful in it. Put it this way, Saturday morning in the dorms at most colleges have their share of ‘the morning after’ look, having now spent a lot of time at Juilliard on Saturdays, you see a lot of kids spending Saturday morning practicing, Friday evening practicing and the like:). </p>
<p>My recommendation would be to look at programs based on their merit, on the fit for your daughter and the like and not worry about allegations of being animal houses and the like. Keep in mind again that reputation can often come from very few people who may have a reason to be bitter towards a school or had bad experiences, and to judge a school based on that alone could end up throwing away a potentially great place to go.</p>
<p>I attended David Lipscomb College in Nashville TN when I was an undergraduate. A very strict and conservative college affiliated with the Church of Christ, it had more alcohol and drug abuse than any school I ever attended. </p>
<p>It is a mistake to think there is anyplace that our children go that won’t include drugs and alcohol.</p>
<p>As an Oberlin student:</p>
<p>Alvin Chow is actually from Florida… Angela Cheng is from Canada.</p>
<p>Oberlin also has a substance-free dorm, for those that choose to live there.</p>
<p>@heintzman - always worth auditioning at the schools her private teacher recommends. The piano program at Oberlin this year is particularly competitive. If she gets in, then I would start worrying about things such as this. If not (which would be at least 80% likely), then there’s nothing to worry about.</p>