My DS visited (and liked) Ithaca College last weekend and one of the profs he met suggested that a college/liberal arts setting with lots of personal attention might be better for undergrad and a “name” school for graduate studies. Is this true? He’d certainly be more likely to get in, and perhaps with more money, than at some of his other choices (Eastman, Northwestern). His main interest is jazz.
In a word, “yes”. Young undergrads can get “lost” in huge programs and some teachers explain things in ways better suited to grad students who have had more time and training. It’s best for the student to find out everything he/she can about the place (and the Internet makes that so much easier than it used to be!) and then visit to “try it on for size”.
I think it depends on the program. Some conservatory Jazz programs, like Eastman or NEC,are not particularly big. And in my personal experience the Jazz programs at these schools have very tight knit communities. So much depends on what your particular child needs in order to excel over the four years he is an undergrad. Some students benefit from being a big-fish in a small pond. While others benefit from being challenged by having students who are a bit ahead of them to play and work with. So much depends on how much an individual is willing to advocate for him/herself and other non-educational factors such as city versus country and what sort of academics they specifically want or do not want. And also try to encourage your student to think about his long-term goals as a musician. Does he imagine himself teaching privately and doing gigs? Does he want to aim for being a “star”? What sort of music besides Jazz interests him? What are his social needs? His he somebody to take a leadership role or is he more of a follower? I would make sure to expose your child to as much variety as possible and then listen to them as they process what they see. As a rule many kids know deep down what they want but will not admit it if the “world” is throwing ideas about what is best or right.
Abolutely. In fact,
1: All of the ratings that you see for schools are for their grad programs unless they don’t have one in that subject.
2: The books that your high school counselors use are often ten years out of date and nearly useless for recommendations. None of the schools my son applied to were on the list except for one, and they had major issues that year.
3: The ratings are almost entirely based upon their instrumental and/or education programs. If you are looking at voice, opera, jazz, or studio work, it’s better to ask someone who knows or your teacher. That is, if the teacher is a real pro with connections and not just some teacher who has out of date knowledge.
As such, especially considering #1 and #2, undergrad programs are incredibly hard to figure out which is good and which is not. Of course, there are the major schools, but often they are still putting all of their effort into the grad students and tend to grind everyone else under a giant wheel. CCM is a great example. Fantastic for both undergrad and grad school, but it’s mercilessly tough on undergrads. Most of the big schools are as well. So what you’d be looking at optimally would be something in the A- tier that’s still a big program (anything in the top 50 is fine for undergrad). These usually are state colleges and will still be perfectly acceptable to get into any grad school.
For instrumental music, a good place to start would be if it is a NCAA football school, believe it or not. They all have large bands and often quite a few stellar jazz teachers as well. My son is going to Houston and almost 20 of their band’s members are in various DCI groups. The same is true for most of the schools they play against.
4: The middle of the country has a brain-drain going on. Excellent schools like University of Michigan and UT Austin have many of their best potential students ( the truly talented by and large ) go to the coasts to the big shiny schools. So they work very hard to recruit people from out of state and give scholarships. I mention Texas again as they have a statewide program where if you receive $1000 or more in scholarships, they waive the out of state surcharge for any public school. Many other universities in the middle of the country also offer good scholarships and should not be overlooked. What decided Houston for us was the full scholarship. He’s going to graduate with nearly no debt.
I am confused by the question. By “name” schools are you referring to well-known conservatories? I mean, some LAC’s are “name schools.” Are you asking if a non-conservatory LAC is better than a conservatory for undergrad ? A small school better than large? Sorry, just need clarification of terms.
Of course, many LAC;s ONLY have undergrads and will argue they are best for undergrads therefore.
In general we found that representatives at a variety of schools would tout their benefits for undergrads: we took some of these comments with a grain of salt and came to our own conclusions for the particular child.
As another general comment the presence of grads on campus has pluses and minuses. Investigate both.
I would say that the top grad schools have students from all kinds of undergrad schools, often ones that are not the “name” ones.
Just to balance opinions my D and her UG friends at IU (similar reputation to CCM where she also had friends) never got ground up or lost (except maybe late at night coming home from kilroys bar). She had a positive experience. As @stacjip points out there are a variety of reasons for picking a school.
I agree in general with many of the comments above (particularly about debt) but I dont think U of Michigan is hurting for top music, MT or theatre students. It’s highly sought after and a difficult admit. IU and CCM are mid-west and in the same boat not to mention Oberlin, Lawrence etc. There’s not a talent drain there.
^Agree with bridgenail above. My S got his undergrad music performance degree at UM and he did not get ground up at all. Lots of talented students from both in and out of state. He felt that the grad program really enhanced his experience rather than taking away from it in any way. There’s so much opportunity for collaboration between grad and undergrad students and the grad students are often looking for other students to perform on their recitals or perform their compositions and on and on.
It really depends on the program. You can’t make sweeping generalizations in music.
^^^ Exactly. The intended specialization (strings vs voice vs jazz vs piano vs composition, etc.) must also be considered. One size does not fit all.
Even within a specialization. S is within a jazz studies program and mentioned that he sees “swim lanes” (my word) for the different instruments. Since they have such a depth of ranked bands there, he can see that the centroid of freshmen placement is at quite different ranks depending on the instrument. You might be in sort of a high band on one instrument, but not quite in a band on another instrument.
Which school?
@akapiratequeen - The school is the University of North Texas.
I was thinking ahead if I would answer which instrument lanes have which freshmen centroids, and I don’t think I will for the most part. I am sure some people expect I made a spreadsheet for it. 
Just to weigh in, several people told my son to not got to IU because it was a large school and he would get lost in the crowd, the competition is fierce, the faculty will ignore him, etc. He took this criticism to heart. He still picked IU, but with some reservations.
He could NOT be happier. He loves it - he gets one-on-one attention, small group classes, large classes, and loves the faculty and being at a university. Moreover, being in a large music school offers a multitude of opportunities - I think the story is an average of eight performances a night on campus (instrumental, theater, opera, etc.).
Everyone is different. Every instrument is different. What works for one student, may not work for another. Plenty of kids would hate IU. I get that. And since my son is not in jazz, I can’t comment specifically on IU jazz, but this is a general post about people making generalizations is music. Don’t rule out big, little, LAC, etc until you delve into it. But, I felt compelled to say something b/c had he listen to the critics of large schools, he would not have ended up at IU and FOR HIM, that would have been a shame.
beaglemom, so happy to hear he is loving it, and great post…