<p>My D is about to start her sr year. She is looking for a university where she can double major (one in music) as opposed to a conservatory. She is very talented and loves it, but not looking to make a career out of music. I'm looking for suggestions for schools where she may get a great balance and wondering if most of these schools require auditions. Also, transcript is very strong (4.0) and has great extra curricular orchestra experience. Thanks for your help!</p>
<p>What is your daughter’s other intended major and does she plan om a BM or BA in music? If she is interested in a BA music, the list of top schools is long. Is she interested in a LAC. Oberlin and Bard are examples of LAC’s that have 5 year dual degree programs leading to a BM and a BA. Auditions will be required for BM programs.</p>
<p>She is thinking of a history major at this point, but I know that could change several times. Right now she’d like to go into law. LAC would be great but I think that a BA would be fine and she’d be interested in performance, as opposed to composition.</p>
<p>Bard also has a BA program in the college (not the conservatory) and it’s entirely possible to double major in history and music there. Bard has a unique curriculum in that all students complete a significant senior project in their major, but I can envision a music/history crossover project that might meet both departments’ requirements. </p>
<p>D2 just finished a double major in photo and lit there, and is also a violist. While she didn’t major in music, she did take private lessons (for free) and participated in the college orchestra and several chamber groups. </p>
<p>As a violist, your D would be in great demand pretty much everywhere! Many of the LACs offer lessons/orchestra, and of course the Ivy-level schools all seem to attract strong musicians with other interests as well.</p>
<p>In reference to your daughter’s interest in law as a career, there has been some buzz in the legal community about a group of bloggers called lawshcoolscam. If you google it, you will find the blogspot site. These bloggers are expressing their unhappiness at what they perceive as the poor job prospects in relation to the debt load of recent law school grads. </p>
<p>In the interest of full disclosure, I am an happy, employed lawyer, but if my kid wanted to be a lawyer, instead of a musician, I would want him to know that a JD does not always equal a good job.</p>
<p>Thank you for the feedback, I will definitely have her look into Bard. It sounds like a nice compromise!</p>
<p>electricbassmom, I am an exec recruiter in the investment banking field and I definitely know there are no great career paths out there for most majors. UMiami has a very interesting grad school program. In 3 years, post undergrad, you get (I think) an MBA and a JD with an emphasis on the music industry.</p>
<p>There are lots of great schools for your daughter. As Stradmom said - if she’s willing to get a BA in Music w/ a performance emphasis - there are many great choices. Vassar, Williams, Tufts, Yale, Pomona, CMC, and Princeton all come quickly to mind among some of the top tier schools. I think she’ll need to narrow down her list by other attributes: size, location, peer group, class size, department specialty etc.</p>
<p>Other places she might want to consider - Lawrence University in Appleton, WI has a dual degree program. St. Olaf is more known for its choral program, but they have excellent orchestra options as well. The University of Rochester is also another excellent option. She can take lessons at Eastman and play in the UR orchestra. UR has a very good BA program.</p>
<p>If she is leaning towards American History, look at the College of William and Mary or Gettysburg. Son is working as an historical interpreter this summer(he loves history and music) and most of the other interpreters and their supervisors are from the College of William and Mary. The ones who didn’t attend W & M did internships at Colonial Williamsburg. Gettysburg is awesome if she is into Civil War history plus they do have a conservatory of music attached to the school.</p>
<p>Don’t overlook the BA in Musical Studies at Oberlin. It is jointly run by the College and the Conservatory. As far as law school goes, it is a simple fact that there are too many law schools producing too many lawyers. In a good economy which I hope we will have by the time your daughter gets out, there is a simple formula for getting a job after law school - great grades. That goes for JD’s who don’t want to practice law as well.</p>
<p>Thank you for the responses. These are great school choices to consider. Having an older child in school, who has switched majors several times, I am also wondering if we should look at a LAC college, with an orchestra in case she changes her mind. In that case, wondering what schools her musical ability might get her in?</p>
<p>You might want to read a piece (on the Peabody Conservatory admissions site) about double major versus double degree, and other options, which people here on cc often refer other parents to. [Peabody</a> Institute - Conservatory Admissions: The Double Degree Dilemma](<a href=“http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/doubledegree]Peabody”>http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/doubledegree)</p>
<p>A personal note: I found that teenagers often change interests and goals quite often. In our family, we kept options open for our musician daughter, until the very last minute when she had to choose - on April 30th of senior year!</p>
<p>As a a strategy, your daughter can pick schools that fit all possibilities, and/or pick schools that each represent a possibility among many, if you know what I mean. In our daughter’s case, she applied to a conservatory that is part of an LAC, 3 excellent urban conservatories, an artsy, relaxed LAC with independent work, and a rigorous, highly selective university. I suppose these all fit aspects of her personality and in the end, it was hard, but very clarifying, for her to choose.</p>
<p>One other thing that I recommend often is the book “Creative Colleges,” which lists universities, colleges, conservatories, music schools that offer excellent programs. It covers both BA and BM degrees. I don’t remember if this book tells which schools have auditions and which don’t (it might) but websites have that info, as you know.</p>
<p>Double majors can be, say, music and history, for one BA degree. Double degrees can be BA in history and BM in music, with two schools involved (Tufts and NEC) or a college and conservatory on the same campus (Oberlin, Bard, Lawrence, Peabody/John Hopkins, Rochester/Eastman etc.) Double degree programs can also be a BA and MM as with Harvard and NEC. Double degrees generally take 5 years.</p>
<p>Some BA programs in music do have performance, but others don’t, and leave performance to extracurriculars. That would be a key point to check out, most likely.</p>
<p>If there is no audition, often sending a supplement to the application, with a CD or DVD, is helpful w/admissions. For BM programs, the audition is the main thing.</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Thank you very much. I’ve ordered the book. I think that it’s a very intense process. I’m a little surprised that, as with athletes, there aren’t scouts for some of these schools out looking for the talent. I have another child in college, not musical at all, that has changed her major 3 times. With that in mind, I am trying to find a school that has the right balance where she can still do be involved, maybe not as intensely, should she change her mind.</p>
<p>Your D has a lot of options if she currently isn’t thinking of going into music as a career. </p>
<p>A double degree (BM/BA) sounds tempting, where she could do music performance while studying something else, but a word of caution, that is not easy. Bard requires their BM students to get a second degree, and it is a 5 year program because to fit that in 4 years is very, very difficult. Performance degrees take up a lot of time (I have heard people say how ‘unchallenging’ a BM is, hah…they have a very, very full day_) and then you have the core courses for the other degree and so forth. </p>
<p>There are alternatives to the BM dual degree…</p>
<p>-BA music, BA or BS in something else. Won’t have quite the load that a BM has, BA requirements are less and may not require an audition (other then placement in orchestras and such)</p>
<p>-do a BA orBS in something, and take lessons and do music without getting a degree in it.LACs often have good music programs even though they don’t offer a BM, and I know with some certainty that the Ivies place an emphasis on their student music groups and such and I am pretty certain that a student playing an instrument at a decent level is a plus with those schools. So you D could be taking private lessons, doing orchestra and chamber and such, and doing a regular major. The level of the ensembles may not be quite the same as a BM program might, but having seen a number of kids from the pre college program my S is in go to the top level colleges, I suspect it still would be pretty high level (Note, I am using the ivies as an example, there are a lot of other really good colleges that have good UG student music available). </p>
<p>As far as Law being a good profession or not, right now it is a tough economy for everything and newly minted grads are having trouble across the spectrum; law firms are not necessarily hiring and it is competitive as hell, but even fields once thought to be decent to get a job, like tech, are facing problems, including that H1 Visa holders are increasingly taking jobs that used to go to entry level kids from college and it takes creativity and persistance to find your way. I suspect those grousing on the legal blog someone mentioned in part had high expectations that they would come out of law school and be on the track to the high 6 figure salary and so forth (especially those coming out of top level Ivy programs and similar) or saw only the 'standard" track. This isn’t the place to talk about that specifically but with a law degree you can do a lot of things, as you can with a music degree (for example, in the financial industry, compliance is a big, part part of operations and growing, the laws are complex as hell, both from the regulator side and the private side). It is like in music, where music students often focus on the traditional path of soloist or orchestra musician or chamber, which are all very difficult to impossible, but the kids who make it figure out unique ways to make it work:)</p>
<p>Thank you musicprnt. I think that her options are wide open as well. Maybe you can answer this question–Do these LAC with good orchestras, such as Ivies you mention, hold auditions? Is the best way for me to find out to call into the music department? I think that this may be the way for her to go, if she still feels strongly about it, she can continue to persue this line of study in grad school.</p>
<p>She could also look at CIM and Case Western. Entrance to CIM as a viola major with an academic major taken at Case would require rather a higher level of playing ability because you’re looking at a top conservatory program. Case Western also has a very good music program on it’s own and a double major there is less strenuous (on the music end of things). If she decided not to seek the additional music degree, Case’s orchestra would still be open to her and the area has all the amenities of University Circle including student admission to Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra.</p>