<p>My friend is asking me about this school, but I don't have idea about music school. Appreciate if you can share anything with me.</p>
<p>One big recommendation is to look at their website, all the schools have websites that generally give a lot of information. Likewise, you can search threads on here to find those pertaining to Berklee.</p>
<p>Berklee is a stand alone school of music (ie not part of a university) that offers degrees in musical performance, composition and so forth. It is not a classical conservatory, its focus is on contemporary music and jazz. You still learn a lot of the same things you would in a classical conservatory (music theory, ear training) but it centers around contemporary music like jazz, pop, rock, etc…I believe they also offer coursework in music engineering/recording engineering, but I am not certain about that.</p>
<p>I have known people who went there and in some ways it is very similar to classical schools, it is pretty rigorous with all the classes in theory and such, plus lessons and ensembles and whatnot, it is pretty intense in other words and is for someone who really is into music and wants to live and breathe it (if it is like other stand alone music schools, you don’t do a lot of general courses in liberal arts and such). They bring in a lot of successful musicians from a variety of genres, friend o mine had people anywhere from herbie hancock to Mark O’Connor and there is a broad list of people from a wide swath of ‘contemporary’ music who partake of these.</p>
<p>My comments are limited to potential performance majors. Berklee also offers a variety of music related majors such as business and production about which I am unqualified to comment.
A few years ago a poster on another thread took Berklee to task for its lack of a gym and infirmary. It’s true, Berklee has neither, nor does it have an equestrian team or a particle accelerator. It is a contemporary music school and does not purport to be anything else. The demands placed on students by the music curriculum are significant, the demands placed on them by the distribution requirements less so. It is populated by a significant percentage of gifted, devoted students, many of whom are blessed with a splendid, for want of a better term, musical imagination. They gravitate toward each other. Growth through association with these students is unavoidable and significant. It also has students who are less than devoted and Berklee will be more than happy to cash their tuition checks while they waste their time. Going to Berklee is about being an adult. If you get sick, there’s no school nurse. You go down the street to the hospital. If you have the talent, and the drive to become an accomplished musician, the sky is the limit. Success or failure at Berklee is determined by what lies within the student. If your friend needs to be coddled he/she needs to look elsewhere. If on the other hand your friend is a talented self starter who can look out for him/herself, pack for Boston now.(As an aside, if you count yourself among the timid, and intend to pursue a career in contemporary music, you might want to revisit the career plan)</p>
<p>Perhaps the feature which sets Berklee apart is, on certain instruments, the depth and range of faculty. When my son did the audition tour 4 years ago we repeatedly found ourselves in the company of the one or two professors on his instrument and were faced with the unavoidable question of "do I want to spend the next four years of my life with that guy?"Have your friend go on the Berklee web site to see the faculty available on his/her instrument. They might be surprised.
Berklee is not cheap. In my opinion, the housing plan with mandatory meal plan is what makes it prohibitive. Forget the dorm. Make some friends, find an Apt. and pool your resources to cover food expenses. On the subject of money, be aware of this. If Berkee wants you, because of demonstrated talent, they will make it worth your while. I have no empirical data to support this, but it is my impression that they don’t give money to a lot, but they do give a lot of money to a few. If your friend is at that level it can make all the difference.
Finally, there is Boston. I’m sure that somewhere there is a cooler place for a college student to live, but I just can’t seem to find it.</p>
<p>thank you for the reply!
I will let my friend know and let him make a call. It is not cheap at all!</p>
<p>Just a comment on Berklee tuition. Berklee used to be known for giving very generous scholarships to talented musicians. Last year I knew several kids who I swore were going to get full-rides. These students were clearly at the top of their game (all-state, festival winners etc…) and they did get reasonably generous scholarships but last year Berklee’s scholarships were more in line with the money these students were getting from other schools (aprox 13-18K). What changed? Well for one thing Berklee is building a huge new building which will be state of the art. The other, which is information that a Berklee faculty member told me, is that they are getting a huge number of international students applying. And there are some specialized high schools in Israel and in other countries that are producing very mature and sophisticated musicians. </p>
<p>I agree that Berklee is not for a student who needs to be coddled or who is not self-motivated. It is an easy place to get lost. It is also a place where you will constantly be confronted by new arrivals who may be more talented or better than you. It is a magnet for talent from all over the globe. If you are somebody with confidence issues and self-doubt or are one to give up in the face of competition then Berklee is also probably not the right place. </p>
<p>Boston is a great place to be a young musician. The energy is really quite unique. There are so many clubs where students can perform around town. My son attends NEC, but because he is a Jazz musician he spends time with Berklee kids as well. Yesterday he was in another kid’s recital and the room was full and many of the kids that came to hear the recital were from Berklee. The energy among all these young musicians (listeners and those who were playing) was amazing.</p>
<p>thanks for sharing!!!</p>
<p>I suspect with Berklee if the grants/scholarships are less then they have been, it probably reflects a reality with endowments (that fund scholarships), that the rates of return aren’t that high and endowments took a general beating in the economy mess of the last 5 years. I doubt the new building has anything to do with it, though, capital funding for buildings and plant are generally seperate from the funding pool for scholarships and aid, they solicit contributions for a capital fund and if I remember correctly I am not even sure they would be allowed to divert resources from endowed scholarships to capital costs (there are all kinds of rules governing endowments, because they are non profit and don’t get taxed, including they have to spend a certain percentage of the endowment on scholarships and such, too much money in the endowment not doing anything brings frowns from regulators and the IRS). </p>
<p>Could it be international students? I am a little more doubtful about that, while I am familiar with the flood of students, especially from Asia, often at high levels, but I suspect the idea that they are giving that money to international students to get them to go there and cut funds for others is not a big factor in it. They always were probably enticing extraordinary students to come to Berklee and it doesn’t matter whether from the US or elsewhere, I doubt the numbers have changed that much, they simply now are going to different people. I have heard tales, that music schools are shifting funds to pay for all these foreign students they want, but I haven’t found too much evidence to back it up. I suspect more then likely it represents financial limitations of endowments,made more obvious by schools costs skyrocketing.</p>