<p>The Onion is not a newspaper, it is a parody of the news that satires everything it can. One memorable headline was “President of US job outsourced to India”, complete with the line that the guy getting the job was promised he could keep his job as a call center operator for American Express. Another classic one was worlds most boring man dies of boredom, you get the drift. About the only thing in the Onion that is real tend to be things like movie reviews and the like…and I can promise you, kids at Bard aren’t all that much different from kids elsewhere in that regards:)</p>
<p>As far as drinking and smoking, depends on the college. Schools that have a large percentage of foreign students tend to have more students smoking because smoking tends to be more common overseas then in the US as a rule (today less then 20% of Americans are classified as smokers). With drinking, you will find that at all schools, conservatory or university, that varies depending on a lot of factors. About the only place you don’t see drinking or smoking at all probably would be religious schools where both are forbidden (well, at least in the open that is). </p>
<p>You may want to look back at the threads others have posted, there is a lot of information in them which I will add are people’s opinions. Based on my limited experience (not quite at the college audition time yet with our child) the difference between a big name school like Juilliard or Curtis (to use 2 common examples) and a ‘less highly known one’ in general is that these schools tend to attract a large pool of very high level candidates, so they have a talented pool to pick from, whereas another program that is less well known doesn’t quite have that kind of competition…and that can make a difference to some students, being around kids generally at a high caliber can spur them on to really go at it, whereas if they are near the best player in a program, may be less incentive to excel, even though the teaching is great. (note the may, depends on the student)</p>
<p>Some music programs have a fantasic program in some areas and not in others, so you could have a topnotch composition department with a mediocre violin department so it might be a great match as a composer, but not if you are on the violin. Programs like the Juilliard et al tend to be pretty strong across the board,though it is quite possible that in an individual category, let’s say piano performance, another school’s program could be considered stronger then Juilliard’s (not saying that actually exists, that is made up example). </p>
<p>The other thing to keep in mind are opportunities to actually perform as a student. In some programs, undergraduate students don’t have as many performance opportunities as other places. Also, where a school is located is important, a student at Juilliard or NEC, for example, can find not only opportunities within the school, but also in the surrounding area, given the density of performing arts in the NYC or Boston area…</p>
<p>More importantly, it depends on finding a teacher and program that works for the student (not easy, I grant you), it could be that a ‘lesser’ ranked program works better for a student then a ‘higher’ ranked one. The other thing, that other people have alluded to, is that these days more and more music students are getting MM degrees, and that might make where you go UG a little less important, since a student could always go to a ‘top ranked’ school graduate level.</p>