Getting into Harvard thru Music?

<p>Is it possible to get in through music even if I am not going for music? For instance, if I send in a recording or my playing and the head of the music department hears it and is impressed by it? What if that certain year, their orchestra is need of instruments? btw I play the horn.</p>

<p>I highly doubt that the orchestra has any influence over admissions at all. You can't get in "through" music. It helps, but it's not like they recruit musicians the way they do atheletes.</p>

<p>Are you kidding? Of course they do.</p>

<p>Really? Hunh. Learn something new every day.</p>

<p>To clarify my question, does admissions "recruit" musicians the way they recruit athletes? I heard that classical music plays a big role in ivy league colleges. and since I play a sort or rare instrument(horn) would there be any impact?</p>

<p>It should help if you're very good. The application allows you to submit a recording or slides or artwork. Then, if the adcoms feel that a review may be helpful, they send it to the music and art professors to review. </p>

<p>I've heard that they do recruit musicians, but I'm not sure.</p>

<p>Musicians just happen to apply, and then Harvard accepts them. Harvard doesn't really need to go out and look for them or for anybody else. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia get many good musicians as applicants, especially with Juilliard, NEC, and Yale School of Music (and urban to somewhat urban environments—except for Princeton, but lots of good musicians go to P, too) there to attract them.</p>

<p>yahooo, if you are a very talented Horn player, it can really have a big impact on your admissions decision, despite what anyone tells you. I am the manager of a major musical group on campus, and I happen to know that conductors can put in requests for certain instruments. It is certainly to your advantage that you play the horn, as my musical group (and I know many others as well) are in dire need of horns. So make sure that recording is spectacular... it can really work to your advantage.</p>

<p>Well as spectacular as a horn recording can be. . . . that instrument is beastly hard. But if it's good, you'll make some impression! Only use this as your hook if you're serious and if you're good and if you put a lot of time into it.</p>

<p>hopefully they would see i have a passion for music because unlike a lot of applicants, my Ec's are not all that random like a "laundry list". i founded a symphony orchestra in my school and am in a horn quartet that will perform in stanford next yr (although they aren't up to national level).</p>

<p>it most def helps that you play a rare instrument...
and harvard most def will accept what they need more of
say all their horn players graduate that year
if you are a great horn player - they will really want you....</p>

<p>all this really comes to play in admissions</p>

<p>Horn quartet? four horns? wow. Isn't that kind of like walking an ensemble tightrope? The sound of the horn is really beautiful, though. You know Schumann's konzertstuck for four horns and orchestra? Your next piece, huh?</p>

<p>haha so jono does a piano trio have three pianos? what about a cello quartet-four cellos? just because its named a horn quartet doesnt mean there are four horns-necessarily.</p>

<p>it would be a wind quartet or a brass quartet if it weren't all horns. A cello quartet is in fact four cellos. A violin quartet is four violins. A trombone quartet is four trombones. A saxophone quartet is four saxophones. Saying piano trio distinguishes it from a string trio or a wind trio. Saying viola quintet or cello quintet means it's a traditional quartet plus an extra viola or cello. Yahooo must mean four horns. Yahooo?</p>

<p>Who would, in his right mind, listen to four trombones? That sounds positively godawful.</p>

<p>Trombonists :-) (I'm not one) I heard a trombone quartet play Shosty 8 quartet arranged, and the cello-trombone played wrong notes. I might be unhealthily bothered by wrong notes, though. I might be unhealthily bothered by many things, actually. . . I don't know, though, I think violin quartet is worse. Trombone quartets can be pretty cool.</p>

<p>No. Especially not when butchering Shostakovitch! I believe it was Strauss who said "Dont look at the trombones. It only encourages them."</p>

<p>Pretty true, except it might be better to look at them if you're the conductor and to make them play better, because in this orchestra I was in two years ago, the trombonists were talking about how the conductor seemed to ignore them all the time and how they could get away with playing unnecessarily loudly. But I know some really responsible trombonists now, and I also know some really irresponsible violinists.</p>

<p>The horn quartet I'm in at school usually has four players.( sometimes we have an extra doubling on 4th)</p>