<p>Well, I think the vast majority of people that go on to MM degrees come from university undergrad programs, just because the number of BM-granting music programs at universities and the number enrolled in each dwarfs the number of conservatories out there. I’m sure many of the most qualified applicants come from conservatories, and many others come from the music schools in universities that truly rival the conservatory level (along with the standout players from less-known programs). Nothing I’ve seen has suggested that one applicant will be selected over another because one went to a university and the other a conservatory. But really, musically, I think places like Northwestern, University of Michigan, Indiana and Rice really make arguments about conservatory-vs.-university seem a little irrelevant as far as musical development. There may be those who can’t stand the minimum of academics required for those institutions’ BM degrees, but those requirements don’t somehow diminish the intensity of musical focus. </p>
<p>The point is that for grad school, I haven’t encountered anything to suggest that a player will be chosen over another because one went to a conservatory while the other attended a university. The audition system makes it easy to hear who put the time in during their undergrad, and a Juilliard or Curtis degree won’t make up for missed notes or shaky intonation, and a degree from a branch campus of a third-tier state school won’t keep a standout player from getting in. There may be fewer resources at the latter school, but there are always graduate students at top-tier music schools who come from “nowhere” backgrounds. </p>
<p>I think it’s a wonderful thing that the CC community doesn’t seem to rank music schools (which I think would be a fool’s errand anyway because of the fact that there are individual studios in otherwise-unknown schools of music that make certain departments at the best schools look silly). However, I sometimes fear that people that don’t know the system well (which I think frequently includes parents who only start thinking about music schools when faced with the prospect of their sons or daughters enrolling in one) can sometimes make the line between conservatories and schools of music more definite than it is in practice. This explains the phenomenon of colleges and universities retitling their schools of music as “The X Conservatory at Y University,” which I think only serves to confuse parents with regards to the few schools (Eastman/Rochester, Peabody/Hopkins, CIM/Case Western, Westminster Choir College/Rider, etc) where the conservatory is actually a separate location and not just what the larger college university calls its music school.</p>