<p>Would anyone be able to give me a general sense of how these conservatories compare in difficulty of admission (for piano student):</p>
<p>NEC, Oberlin, Eastman, Bard, Lawrence?</p>
<p>Are there top-notch conservatories that are known to be somewhat less competitive in terms of admission?</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>PennsylDad, you are probably not getting much response because there really is nothing anyone could say. All audition based admissions are competitive. Each school each year will change depending on openings and the class that is auditioning. . Top-notch and less competitive don’t tend to go together. You find excellenet teachers in all kinds of schools and that is where the focus perhpas should be since that will be the top-notch school for your student. .</p>
<p>Singersmom said what I was going to say. Furthermore, I know next to nothing about these schools’ piano departments. That said, I would hazard a guess that the first three would be a bit more selective than the second two based upon name recognition alone. (That is, attracting more conservatory-bent students).</p>
<p>I think if you follow Singersmom’s suggestion you may find that some of the top-notch faculty also teach at less competitive music programs- where the college’s reputation may keep the music program less on the radar and not draw as many applicants of the highest quality - but the instruction will be top-notch nonetheless. We’re not talking about any of the schools above, though. If you look at faculty with whom your son is interested in studying you can then check where all the schools are that they teach.</p>
<p>In addition, many less known faculty at less famous music programs could very well also be a fantastic teacher for your son. I know this is true for composition majors.</p>
<p>I agree with the others, that is a hard question to answer. What makes the top conservatories so competitive is because they have the reputation for turning out high level students, so high caliber students tend to gravitate that way. This Juilliard, NEC, etc, draw a lot of applications, many of them from kids who are way at the top of the heap in terms of skills, which makes it very tough to get in (since generally, the more kids who apply to a program, the standards are also high since they can pick and choose among the very best).
It is the program’s name that makes it competitive (and I am not saying it is only name, that Juilliard or NEC is all hype, etc, that isn’t true, there is a reason for that name). </p>
<p>And yes, you can apply to a less competitive program because a teacher is there who teaches at a high level program but also teaches there (like, for example, someone who teaches at Juilliard but also at let’s say Mannes on violin hypothetically), that is not uncommon for teachers to do. The potential downside to that is (in theory at least), when at the highly competitive programs, the general air is one that really drives students to make a go at it, to fly higher. A girl I know studies at a school with a really high level teacher, a well respected one, but she found that the rest of the program outside her lessons was a disappointment, so you can find that a teacher is great, but the chamber and orchestra programs are not very good…which you probably won’t find at the highest level programs, where everything tends to be top notch because the students are all out there and so forth. That doesn’t mean that isn’t a path, it is, and a perfectly valid one, especially depending on the instrument. There are lesser known schools that have programs in a specific thing (like voice, for example) that are blockbusters and actually can be better then a big name schools program. </p>
<p>The other factor is that relative competition levels change, too. There can be years where NEC, for example, might have more piano slots open, so actually is an easier admit then Eastman who that year has very few slots and a lot of high level auditioners, you never know, and that factors into the relative levels. </p>
<p>What this means is there isn’t a really objective answer to your question, it all depends on the particular year, what the person is auditioning for and so forth.</p>
<p>Publishers gave up on trying to rank music conservatories and music schools. I think it’s been quite awhile since there’s been any attempt at this in USNWR or NEWSWEEK or similar. I think there is a strings publication that attempts to do this for strings?? (We are not strings people). Names mean something in a networking business like this, BUT there are some great schools and great teachers out there who do not receive anough press – they need better PR officers (I have posted about this before!), so I encourage people to look for those special places.
There will always be discussions on this topic – and gossip --, but as others posted it varies on factors such as instrument, # of studios, ensemble opportunities for undergrads, openings in a particular year in particular studios, the level of competition in that particular year, possibly the ECONOMY since some schools offer more $$$ than others, and various random factors. IS the student also academic, and if so, how much? A really important aspect is student/teacher fit and student/school fit.</p>
<p>Thanks to all who responded.
I think I get the point now! :)</p>
<p>What you have to understand is that all these conservatories are so selective because of the limited number of students that they accept as compared to those pre-screened and then selected for audition and the competition is international. For example the year my daughter applied for vocal performance, Juillard accepted three sopranos. Aschool like Peabody, Northwestern or Carnegie Mellon might accept five sopranos for an entering class of twenty vocalists, five of each vocal type-the same with Oberlin. For instrumentalists, in some years they may not be auditioning those instruments at all, as they have no need because no openings in an orchestra or in any faculty’s studio.They have limited number of faculty, limited number of hours that they can teach = limited number of accepted students any year because they are also teaching sophomores, juniors, seniors and grad students.</p>