<p>I've been accepted to CalArts in Valencia, CA and to Mills College in Oakland, CA for graduate studies in music composition. I'm interested in interdisciplinary collaboration with dance, visual arts, and creative writing. Both of these schools seem to have this element, however they differ greatly in location, cost, size, and student population (guess which one is bigger haha!). CalArts is an all arts school, where as Mills College is a liberal arts school (like Stetson, my alma mater). CalArts has amazing facilities, but with the size of the student body, there's some competition to have access to those facilities. Mills College has a total of 45 graduate music students, so they tend to get a lot of attention and lots of time in the Center for Contemporary Music. Both LA and the SF bay area seem to have a very active new music scene.</p>
<p>Any thoughts that could point me in the right direction?</p>
<p>Isn’t CalArts really prestigious? I’d go to CalArts.</p>
<p>It’s true, CalArts definitely has the name that Mills doesn’t have, but I’m not sure if that’s a good enough reason to lower my consideration of Mills. Yet, it is a good resume liner.</p>
<p>You may want to take this question to the Music Majors sub-forum inside the College Majors Forum and/or to the Grad School Forum.</p>
<p>You can find both of them by returning to the main page that lists all of the forums, and scrolling down.</p>
<p>Here’s the direct link [Music</a> Major - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/]Music”>Music Major - College Confidential Forums)</p>
<p>For composition, which faculty is more in line with your own compositional voice?</p>
<p>Which affords better opportunities for having your works performed? The larger program may well have a higher quality of peer musicians, an important aspect in how your works are played and interpreted.</p>