My S (Class of '24) is looking at Audio Engineering Programs. Schools at the top of his list: SUNY Purchase, University of Rochester, Indiana University, DePaul.
Audition process: Anyone have advice on how to prepare a competitive portfolio? Or opinions about these schools? Any other schools we should be looking at? Hitting the road this summer!
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@dfbdfb and maybe @compmom might be able to suggest some schools. Off the top of my head, I would think that Middle Tennessee State and U. of North Texas might be some other schools to look at.
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@121905 I PM’ed you a list of schools for music tech/production but audio engineering may or may not be offered at these schools!
Top 13 Audio Engineering Schools for 2023 (voices.com)
On this list I would consider U. of Washington, Berklee and Middle Tennessee.
Terminology can be confusing so it depends on what your son wants. Good descriptions of related areas is on the Columbia College Chicago website:
Majors & Programs - Academics - Columbia College Chicago
(Not suggesting a school here, I just think their website is good for differentiating terms for areas of study.)
There is a BS in acoustics, a BA in audio arts, a BS in music technology, and a BM in composition. Is your son sure of what he wants? Is it specifically audio engineering? What are his career goals and what does he want to learn?
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First thing to check (and in a similar vein to what @compmom asked), before offering suggestions: When you say audio engineering, what exactly do you mean? The term is unfortunately ambiguous, with meanings ranging from studio or live music production to electrical engineering with a focus on audio processing, and everything in between (and probably beyond).
And that makes a big difference—the programs at, say, Middle Tennessee and Northern Arizona are going to appeal to very different students.
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To be fair, I think he is figuring that out. He is a musician, but his interest seems to be in sound production–more on the engineering/production side. University of Rochester’s program based in an engineering school is a top choice right now, but he was also attracted to Columbia College Chicago. All the programs are so different–some very conservatory based, others engineering based.
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If he’s interested in a music major or that at least leans heavily toward the “musician” side of things (which is not the direction mine wanted to go in), there are a solid number of audio engineering programs that are music majors with an emphasis in production, or that are housed in colleges of fine arts and are audio engineering programs with a healthy dose of performance.
Most, though not all, of those will require an audition. (But then again, a fair number of audio engineering programs with precisely zero performance coursework or other requirements require an audition, which seriously makes no sense to me).
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