<p>Hi all! I am a senior at Rutgers University majoring in music (the BA program -- double minor in linguistics and math) and I am currently in the researching schools process of applying for grad school in musicology. I would like specialize in the development and evolution of musical styles in the period from Josquin to Beethoven -- historical musicology with a strong theoretical/analytical bent. I am currently starting work on my senior thesis, studying the reactions to the formal and stylistic context of 1750s Vienna on the early sacred music of Haydn.</p>
<p>I would appreciate any info/advice I can get on making contacts with professors before applying -- how exactly does one go about doing that? I've identified a few professors who work in areas that I'd be interested in, but I'm not really familiar with any of their work,</p>
<p>List of schools I'm considering:
U Chicago
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Columbia
U Illinois Urbana/Champaign
Stanford</p>
<p>Now, unlike most other applicants, I transferred into the music major only a semester ago (started out in math and then switched to linguistics before realizing my true passion) -- so I'll have only one semester of music classes on my transcript at the time of application (spring '10) I tested out of a large portion of the undergraduate curriculum and will be taking some grad classes in my remaining two semesters. My GPA is 3.76, and 4.0 in my major. I have taken one practice GRE so far and had V690 and Q740 -- I'm scheduled to take the test on Aug 27, so I should be able to raise that a fair bit in the month to come.</p>
<p>Also, I was born in 1993, and will be 17 come the start of the '11-'12 academic year. Logistic problems of this aside, should I bring this up in my personal statement at all?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>