Dilemma over picking a major (and schools to apply to)

Hi alright, so I’m new here. I’m a rising senior and for years I’ve been convinced I want to go to school for music education. Like, since freshman year. Now college app season is rolling around and I’m starting to get cold feet. I’ve been thinking about the lack of jobs, and stressing about how I probably won’t get into a lot of places because I play a competitive instrument (flute) and I’m fully aware there’s probably so many people better than me.

I’ve been considering maybe pursuing something like media production/film instead. And for the record, I’m not just picking some random major to fall back on, I’ve been intrigued and passionate about media/film type stuff for basically my whole life (I remember in elementary school I would edit together videos and post them on youtube, they’re all gone now but from what I remember, I wasn’t too shabby for a literal 10 year old.). I know I’d be happy with either choice because they’re both creative fields that I’m passionate about. (And if I go with film I’d still 100% minor in music)

So my questions are:
a) In your opinion, what would you go with if you were in my shoes? (Sorry if this question is hard to answer considering you aren’t actually me)
b) What are some schools with good media production programs? I’ve been researching schools for music all these years and now that I’m possibly switching I don’t really know where to begin looking. (For reference, my GPA and SAT scores are average, about a 90 cumulative average and a 1660 on the old SAT. Although I do have quite a few clubs and extracurriculars to help. I’m also in a few AP classes.)

Sorry if this was long and tangent-y. Never posted on here before, only lurked. Thanks!!

Edit: OH- I also live in New York and would like to stay in New England/Northeast area, but I wouldn’t be opposed to looking at schools elsewhere.
I’m also a bit confused about if you typically need to submit a portfolio or something like that for media production, for the few schools I’ve looked at it’s not very clear.

I’d take a look at Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY. It’s well known both for music and communications. I know that becoming a music major or minor requires an audition, but the communications majors do not require a portfolio. Your GPA should be just fine to get in, and they’re SAT optional if you don’t want to submit your score.

  1. I can’t really tell you what I’d go into if I were in your shoes, but I would tell you what I would pick. I played flute in high school too. But I’m not a competitive person, and I realized early on that while I was pretty good at flute, I was not on the track to being professional level by the time I was in high school NOR was I interested in practicing enough to get there. I also had little interest in being a music teacher. However, the entertainment industry (and media) sounds really interesting to me, so I’d go there. (I actually work in the entertainment industry now.)

Based on what you said about your interests, you sound like you’re leaning more media - and you’re holding onto music education because it’s what you ‘always wanted to do.’ It’s fine to change your mind as you learn more about yourself and grow up. It’s also fine to take some classes and decide once you’re already in college.

  1. There are lots of schools. If you live in New York, for public schools there’s SUNY-Purchase, which is known for being an artsy school. They have both communications and media, society, and art. SUNY-New Paltz has a digital media production major. Stony Brook has a major in cinema and cultural studies and a minor in digital art. SUNY-Geneseo has a major in communication: journalism & media. Fredonia has a major in visual arts and new media. University at Buffalo has a film studies major.

On the CUNY side, Brooklyn College has a film major with several concentrations to choose from. There’s also a multimedia computing major. Queens College has communication arts and media studies and film studies. Hunter College has both film and media studies majors. City College has electronic design and multimedia, film and video production, and media and communication arts.

For private schools, Ithaca is a great suggestion; another is Marist College, with its media studies and production major. Marymount Manhattan has a communication and media arts major (and is focused on the arts, entertainment and social sciences/humanities). Emerson College in the Boston area is also a college focused on communication and the performing arts; it’d be a reach for you, but they have several majors that could appeal to you including media arts production. Rochester Institute of Technology has majors in motion picture science and in new media interactive development. Syracuse has a major in art video.

Not too much advice I can give you on what direction to go in, but as a parent of a student heading to Emerson in the fall I do have a couple of comments.

My daughter has always been passionate about drama, very good at band (flute, ha!) and is a great dancer. From a parent perspective I dreaded her wanting to go to college to pursue any of those…starving artist potential and all. However, she knew her future didn’t lie in performance and found that Emerson was the perfect fit for her. At its heart Emerson is a communications school (started as an oratory college in 1880), with a heavy emphasis/great reputation in fine and performing arts programs. They offer a ton of media, production and journalism programs to go along with its arts majors. My daughter will be entering the new Business of Creative Enterprises program this fall, which will allow her to study the business end of the creative industry, while still getting herself arts exposure within her degree. No starving artist (hopefully) with a great marketing and entrepreneurship background to go along with her exposure to the arts. All that to say…Emerson offers a wide variety of great programs in addition to performing arts.

From an admissions perspective, have you taken the ACT? Consider that. My daughter’s SAT score were in the neighborhood of yours, which might have been reach range, but she scored better on the ACT. A 27 ACT moved Emerson into the match zone for her. So, don’t forget about the ACT!