<p>Ha! No, good friends have given me their house key so I’m camping out here during the day. I work from home so I’ve moved my business to their house for a few days.</p>
<p>I feel for you cartera45 - just got my power back yesterday afternoon. I discovered through the ordeal that I have quite an aversion to cold showers. Hope you have a nice suprise today!</p>
<p>This particular student went undergrad and grad. I would never mention this school out of the context of this discussion, because frankly, I do not know who her teacher was. But yes, one successful student from one school is as reliable or as unreliable a basis as an arbitrary list. I do not believe either are a good starting point. My point is that the search is difficult enough, why even start with something so profoundly flawed as this list. Honestly,I do not consider this sort of list as even a “data point”. What sort of data was used to compile the list? How current is the list? Exactly who compiled the list?
My rant(and please do not take this personally as an attack) against these lists is based on the idea that they are quite arbitrary and can start the student in the wrong direction. Why bother?</p>
<p>I guess we will agree to disagree on this :)</p>
<p>I think they have done what I always do. I would like more info on exactly when the graduates did graduate. I look at the bios of those in the YAPs and recent grads and Met winners to see if there is a pattern of where they are coming from. Yes it is only a data point and you have to get to a teacher that works for you, but I think it is a pretty big data point. With a big “however”, DD knows that she will have a long start to her career because of her voice type. She simply has to grow into it and it will be years. Much harder for her to find those data points than her roommate who does the light pants roles and can get started much sooner. So data point maybe but not a rule.</p>
<p>Scanning YAPs and Met competitions is a good way to do personalized research. But looking at that list, I wonder if they even did that. The school that seemed to pop up more regularly than any other when D was researching grad school three years ago was CCM. Of course her research was skewed towards her specific goals. And you know that more often than not the singers undergrad school is hardly ever noted in bios. So I doubt that the criteria used was hardly rigorous to say the least. As the parent of a former grad student who is now working full time as a professional singer and teacher, I would really like to know what “graduate students who are currently working” means and how one finds out definitively who is working and what they are working at.
Now here’s the hard part—a good starting point for research is the student himself/herself. Where they are in the talent pool, how much money is available, what sort of school do they want to study at, and who are they good teachers at those schools. I fear that when the starting point is an arbitrary list, then they are limiting themselves right from the start.</p>
<p>I have to find it suspect when schools with very small VP programs show up as “having the most graduates currently working”. And musica, I agree with you, where are they working? I know of VP majors who ended up working as singing waiters, does that qualify? Or how about spending summers on the stage at an amusement park? While any job nowadays is difficult to get, I doubt that those positions were what students had in mind when they enrolled in a VP program! Frankly, I just don’t believe that it’s possible, much less desirable or necessary to have to “rank” schools- what’s right for one student is not right for another, and the same with teachers.
We are a nation of quantifiers: “The best selling car in America”, “The airline with the most on-time flights”… Let’s leave the hyperbole to the ad agencies and take it out of education.</p>
<p>Wow! Can’t believe I JUST found this thread. Read it through from beginning to end! It’s soo informative :)</p>
<p>But I can’t believe some of these posts are over 5 years old! Some of that information may be just a tad dated. Things change! ;)</p>
<p>Actually Northwestern does not have a musical theater major. It has an excellent theater program and an excellent vocal performance program.</p>
<p>Does anyone know about the balance of classical vs. MT training at Lawrence Conservatory?
I read that all vp majors are also trained in musical theatre, but I’m not sure about the extent. And how difficult is it to get admitted into the Con as a soprano vp major? Thank you!</p>
<p>It really depends upon your talent, the number of other students vying for open places and whatever other factors that Lawrence counts. That said, two years ago, I know of a young soprano who auditioned there after being rejected from every school on her list- she was accepted and is thriving there, so it looks like things worked out just the way they were supposed to!</p>