Hi MT gurus, I’ve been learning a great deal on the music major forum, and am hoping for some cross-pollination advice here. My D (like most of your kids I know) is multi-faceted - classically trained in voice/piano, loves everything about MT, and is a relatively accomplished singer-songwriter-performer.
She’s determined to keep music and MT in her life, but also is very academically inclined (with stats to at least give a shot at any school), and is very attached to the idea of exploring academic interests at a LAC. So we’ve been digging into LACs with conservatories for the dual degree possibility, and LACs simply with great music programs.
Given she’s not ready to dive full throttle exclusively into either a conservatory or an MT program, a sage on the MM forum suggested asking here for recommendations on LACs that are NOT pre-professional and audition-only but rather LACs that have a great student-led MT arena. The hope is such LACs may be places where non-MT majors could still participate extensively in MT, possibly even writing MT and acting in one’s own production.
Suggestions? Since she’s looking for academic rigor (yes, her emphasis, not my limitation) ideas of schools in the top 50 more or less (and yes we take the rankings with a very healthy dose of salt) would be most helpful, but don’t necessarily limit to those. Also, private U suggestions are welcome if they have low walls/open doors between schools/departments. To kick off your thought processes, a few LACs she’s looking at from the music side include Vassar, Oberlin, Macalaster, Pomona/Consortium, Barnard/Columbia, Colorado College, Lawrence U and Vanderbilt.
My nephew is a strong science student and a strong musician and wanted to study both. Not exactly what you are asking about… but he was accepted to study physics and music comp at both U of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon. I know Oberlin was at the top of his list. Other than CMU I don’t what the MT programs are like at Chicago & Oberlin, I just mention this to say that at the beginning of the his college search he thought he would have to make a choice, and was considering doing music as a side, when he actually started speaking to schools he found quite a few where he could double major.
As you find schools that she is interested in I would explore the possibilities with the schools…there maybe more than you think.
This list has probably been presented here and, as usual, take all lists with a grain of salt, but I went to Sarah Lawrence and though it was a thousand years ago, theater was huge there. And students do all sorts of theater-related conference projects.
I agree that student input is invaluable- but if I recall the methodology (and someone correct me if I am wrong) it is based on student “impressions” of various topics- there is no hard data or fact base. So the people answering the survey may have no idea what they are looking at, and/or no comparison with anything else. It’s not like college football where you see the other school’s teams on tv. How many ordinary students would be able to thoughtfully compare their school’s theater program to another?
"We tallied the rankings lists in the current edition, The Best 381 Colleges (published August 2016), based on the data from our surveys of 143,000 students at the 381 schools in the book. Our student survey has 80 questions in four sections. We ask students about: 1) their school’s academics/administration, 2) life at their college, 3) their fellow students and 4) themselves. Students answer by selecting one of five answer choices that range across a grid or scale. The answer choice headers might range from “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree” or “Excellent” to “Poor”
Most of our ranking lists are based on students’ answers to one survey question, such as “How do you rate your campus food?” Some, such as our “Best Classroom Experience” list, are based on students’ answers to more than one question.
Note: No ranking list reflects The Princeton Review’s opinion of (or rating of) the colleges. A college’s appearance on a ranking list in the book is entirely the result of what its own students surveyed by The Princeton Review reported about their campus experiences as well as how they rated various aspects of their college life.
Best College Theater
Based on students’ answers to the survey question: “How do you rate your college’s theater productions?”
Lin Manuel Miranda wrote In the Heights while he was a sophomore at Wesleyan University, so that might be a good school to check out. Williams College is another good LAC with strong theater/music programs. While probably not academic enough, and is a conservatory, you may want to look at the contemporary theater degree at The Boston Conservatory as it combines writing with performance.
Barnard College could be a good fit, and Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Our experience in going through the process suggested that most highly selective LACs or Ivies have very vibrant theatre communities as well.
Aside from those mentioned several times, Vassar is really strong for theater - the Powerhouse, one of the biggest playwright development programs, is based there. Also Brown is great for writing and theater. Barnard has a combined program with Juilliard - but you have to be admitted to both schools. They also have a combined program with Manhattan School of Music, but not for vocal performance, only instrumental. On the other side of the country and a touch easier to get into, Whitman College is a top LAC with very good, student-driven, theater.