How to narrow down the initial list

College Majors Music Major
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<p>I'm a sophomore who is pretty much positive that I will pursue vocal performance during college. My family feels it is time to start thinking about what schools I’ll be visiting, auditioning for and applying to. I want to have my list under 20 or 30 by the beginning of next year. Right now, I have an extremely broad list of nearly 70 schools. Mind you, I certainly have my top five, but they are all pretty competitive, and I plan on auditioning for at least 10 schools, being a soprano and all. My list has come from numerous sources, mostly these forums, and also the Classical Singer college guide, and some other sources. I plan on going to local performing arts college fairs, and I’ll be attending the Classical Singer convention in LA during may as well, where I’ll find out more information. I know once I begin visiting schools and having sample lessons, my list will narrow, which is why I want to have a list of maybe 20 to start with before visits. I know the teacher is the most important, but how am I supposed to figure out where the best teachers are with such a big list? </p>

<p>I want a BM, but I’m not sure if I should keep a couple BA or non-audition programs as safeties. I know that I want to go to a conservatory or a conservatory strength program within a LAC or university. I visited some schools in CA last year, and found that I preferred smaller private schools (not as big as UC schools, iffy on USC, liked the size of Pepperdine) but I’m still intrigued by the programs at schools like UMich, and I also know that even though some universities might be big, their music programs often stay at a reasonable size, and I would spend most of my time with music students anyways. I like the city, but I would go more rural for a great program (I love Oberlin). This is the kind of thinking that lead me to such a huge list. I know that through more thorough research, I will be able to eliminate quite a few places, but I’m not really sure where to start as to narrowing down the list from here. Any suggestions or words of wisdom? I’ve been trying to search other threads, but I’ve been having difficulty finding the right ones. Links to any helpful threads would be appreciated. I’ve read most of the important ones at the top.</p>

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<p>Hello, ImThinking: My D and I were in a similar position a few years ago. I would try to get a reasonable outside assessment of your talent/skill level to see what schools would be a good fit. One good way to do this would be to attend a summer music program or to contact a local university music school for an appointment. Also, I contacted many university teachers via email when my D was a sophomore, to find out a bit about their programs and where their students ended up after the BM. We ended up not applying to any schools where the majority of grads went into either music education or into non-music fields. It is thus helpful to have some idea of where you imagine yourself in 10 years. Also, talk to your current teacher to see if you can be put in touch with other teachers around the country that you might be able to talk to for more information. One of the most important criteria for how you choose your program will be the teachers there. Also, we were interested in the strength of academics, and financial aid or typical size of merit scholarships is also an important factor. I wanted D to be at a “full service” music school so she could be exposed to a wide range of opportunities and not just classical music. Which brings up another good point: talk to your parents and see what they think! Best of luck and don’t worry, as you start collecting more information your list will shrink.</p>

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<p>For my D we did something similar. We kept a Word document in which we listed on the first page all the schools that had been recommended to us, or that we’d heard of and had an interest in. There were many schools.</p>

<p>Then I started going through them one by one (yes, me, not my D - long story, but it just worked better in our situation) and created a page or two for each school. On it, I listed some basic facts such as size, tuition, SATs, scholarship ops, etc. If the SATs were out of range, or the price was too high without scholarship ops, or whatever, I made a note on the first page, and didn’t go further. (eg. “No, no scholarships”) If I felt it fit what we were looking for, I then explored the website to see what sorts of things I thought might catch my D’s interest. I copied and pasted snippets, both positive and negative. I also explored other sites that offered reviews (such as CC’s college visits page).</p>

<p>At that point, if it seemed like a possibility, I emailed my results and the school website to my D, and she began her own exploration of it.</p>

<p>Some of the things my D looked for were availability of other courses of interest (languages, for example) and extra-curriculars she liked. Not everything made a great deal of sense to me! She got excited by things like ping-pong tables, recycling, windmills, bicycles, and discouraged by things like Pepsi-only campuses. :/</p>

<p>We started off with something like 60 or 70 schools. I think I send her links to about 20, and she brought that list down to 10 or 12. Then we began visits (which, for us, took place early senior year, because we lived out of the country prior to then). She further eliminated a few schools because she didn’t click with the teachers, or like the atmosphere, or whatever. </p>

<p>Although my D wasn’t looking for what you are looking for, I think the process might be the same. Although I believe voice students usually end up with a longer list.</p>

<p>Some of the things you might add to your evaluation are what your teacher things of each school, what happens to the graduates, and what opportunities exist for undergrads. Some of the voice folks on here can give you a better idea of what voice majors might look for.</p>

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<p>Once you know what you are really looking for, it becomes easier to start narrowing down the list. We immediately eliminated conservatories for several reasons, after doing that we decided that their are plenty of decent music schools within a half days drive, so we initially narrowed our list to a 300 mile radious. </p>

<p>Son is a marching band fanatic, so we then eleminated schools without football programs. </p>

<p>He has interest in being either a music ed or music performance student, so we then eleminated all schools (except for one saftey) that didn’t offer both degrees. </p>

<p>He is not religious at all, and tends to say things that offend people who are deeply religious, so we eliminated all religous schools. </p>

<p>We then looked at out of state schools that were left, and crossed off every one that didn’t have something very special about them (as we automatically loose the $5,000 scholarship that our state provides for going to an instate school). </p>

<p>After all that, we ended up with just 2 in state public colleges, one in state private college, and one out of state college that was reasonably priced and has something unique about it’s music program. </p>

<p>Coinsidentally, this list had one reach, one slight reach, one match, and one saftey, so it seemed like a pretty reasonable list. </p>

<p>There are one or two colleges that we eleminated because they were out of state and at the time we didn’t think that they had anything special going from them - that I later regretting eliminating because I found out that there was “something special”, but unless something goes terribly wrong with the four he applied at we just arn’t going to worry about it.</p>

<p>Probably the easiest way to start is to figure out what is a “must” and what is a “must not” and scratch off all that don’t have the “must” and all that do have the “must not”. That will probably cut your list in half.</p>