<p>New England Conservatory vs. Indiana Univ. </p>
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<p>Already posted this elsewhere but was told to post it here.</p>
<p>My daughter plans to major in Bassoon Performance. She was accepted into a number of good programs but right now her top choices are NEC and IU Jacobs School of Music. Each school offered merit scholarships but not the amount we had hoped for. We are appealing financial aid, but who isn't? ;-) NEC is notorious for being stingy with aid. IU is re-evaluating our case and thinks they can come up with more funds. We will know next week.</p>
<p>Anyway, right now she is leaning towards NEC which is more expensive IU. She prefers the smaller campus and the city location. But we are wondering if the quality of education will be that much better at NEC than IU? Yes the faculty at NEC are from the BSO and Boston Pops. But will NEC really provide her with a better music education/experience than IU? Is NEC considered more prestigious than IU when it comes to getting into grad schools? Will it really be worth spending the extra $28K for the four years to let her go to NEC? Our family contribution is still rather sizeable for both schools.</p>
<p>And, how much student loan debt can a music performance major really handle after graduating grad school? (Knowing $0 is probably the correct answer?) Are there other parents out there expecting their music major offspring to share the load? Would love to hear from anyone. Thanks! </p>
<p>PS. Since the original posting, IU did give her more money firther widening the gap between the two. My D still wants NEC.</p>
<p>This is a very difficult question and one we have been pondering as well. I don’t think there is a black and white answer. We are willing to sacrifice for our child, but I absolutely refuse to let her take out loans for her undergrad. She will have grad school and (for a violinist) the expense of a better instrument. Has your daughter had lessons with faculty members at both places? I do not believe that going to NEC instead of IU will guarantee your child, or mine, a spot in grad school. Working with a teacher you really mesh with and taking advantage of opportunities will take you far. As I told my child, if she goes to IU, we will be able to pay for summer music programs and help her with the purchase of a better instrument, and these are important also.</p>
<p>I’ve read through some of your posts and believe I was in a similiar situation last year. D was accepted into several very good programs both universities and conservatories. She ended up choosing the one that would cost us the most. She loves it there and really has blossomed in the past year. She received a scholarship but of course tuition, fees, room etc. have all gone up this year. I’m always questioning if it is worth how much money it costs. We are trying to pay as we go except for her Stafford Loans because we are figuring we will need to help her with those later. She is applying for some local scholarships. Hopefully that can help. I just keep telling myself to breathe, relax, and take one month at a time. Again she loves her school and teachers and is doing wonderful. Nancy</p>
<p>I can’t say which school will train her better musically. I would decide that point based upon the teacher. However, she will get a much better academic education at IU. When you are on a campus with that many kids, the fact that it is not in a big City is not that much of a drawback. It is not like she is going to go to Legal Seafood or the Boston Pops every night, or even once a semester. The smallness of NEC can be quite clostrophobic. Although, I must admit that you can’t get much bigger than IU’s music school.</p>
<p>josoon, I really don’t know what is right for your family, but my D is a student at NEC and is quite happy being in Boston. She sometimes subs in local groups to supplement her performing opportunities at school. She also attends BSO concerts quite frequently. They have a special program for college students. I think students purchase a college card for $25 at the beginning of the year. The BSO sets aside 100 seats for 25 selected performances. Students call in for for free tickets on the day of those performances. It’s a pretty good deal. As a freshman, she had a job as an usher at Symphony Hall, so she actually was paid to attend performances. Being in a city like Boston with great performing groups has been a wonderful bonus for her.</p>
<p>We are in the throes of the decision making process as well. We are hearing that NEC has been putting a lot of money into their chamber music programs in recent years and that some of the top string players graduating from Juilliard pre-college this year who are deciding between Juilliard and NEC are choosing NEC (we have even heard a rumor that Itzhak Perlman is making this recommendation to at least one student). We know a very talented violinist with an international reputation who is choosing NEC over Juilliard and Curtis. </p>
<p>That said, I do think that the studio should probably be the deciding factor in making a decision of this kind, all other things being equal. As a University professor, I always hope that parents will not let money decide them when choosing their children’s education and training. As a parent, I do understand the pressures and the realities. Music is a brutally competitive business, and it’s not just the training, but the mentoring. A teacher who makes the opportunities for his or her students and a city where the opportunities can happen are very compelling reasons to dig deeper into the pocketbook.</p>
<p>There most certainly are plenty of musicians at NEC who not only chose NEC over Curtis and Juilliard, but even <em>transfered</em> to NEC from schools like Curtis and Juilliard. However, do keep in mind that these kids are almost always string players, and NEC kind of has developed a top notch reputation in that department - in fact they always bill themselves in promotional materials as the country’s top strings program.</p>
<p>The fact that NEC can draw transfer students out of Curtis and into their own school leads me to believe that they must have money to throw around. Whether this money is spread out evenly across all disciplines, that’s probably very questionable.</p>
<p>Free does not always equate to being the best program for a performance discipline.</p>
<p>Just because one has the chops and the ability to get into Curtis, or a free ride at Colburn, or hefty talent award at Juilliard, does not mean that the program will always be right for a particular student. </p>
<p>Oft times, high level performance aspirants will follow an instructor if they leave a faculty position; certain departments, disciplines,studios, scope and number of instructors have greater depth. Different atmospheres as well as end goals drive the decision as well.</p>
<p>stephmin is correct. It’s not the norm, but it is not a rarity either.</p>
<p>NEC continues to be a top pick at the highest level for many applicants, particular strings and chamber disciplines, regardless of other admittance options.</p>
<p>This may be a trivial point, compared to the musical considerations being discussed and the fact that the person who initiated this thread did not ask about Curtis Institute. But since Curtis Institute is so often referred to as being “free,” as it was in a couple of posts on this thread, just wanted to mention that it says on the Curtis Institute web site that students are responsible for their own living expenses, which are listed here </p>
<p>If you scroll to the bottom of that page, it says estimated total 9 month cost to students would be $22,650, not including the cost of miscellaneous other things including expense of moving and tuning of the “loaner” pianos provided to keyboard, composition and conducting students. Since the free tuition is considered a merit award, the cost of the living expenses would likely require loans and work study if the family could not afford these costs. So Curtis is a great value, with free tuition for all students, but does not appear to be “free” in the sense of the all-expenses paid, “free ride” type of aid that some schools provide to highly talented students.</p>
<p>Curtis also supplies need-based grants to cover living expenses, at least partially from institutional funding, for those who are eligible. They do make you take some loans and a work-study positions, so there is no complete “free ride” at least through official sources. I have heard of some students who have been unofficially aided by local families that are among the patrons of the arts who have supported Curtis over the years.</p>
<p>Perhaps not any more, but the Curtis, Bok and Zimbalist (of acting fame) families left them a pretty nice endowment. I do not know how that endowment has fared in the recent market turmoil, however. They have substantial support from some of the wealthier families in the Philadelphia area. They recently raised the $65 million needed for a new building in a very short fundraiser that included nine donors at over $1 million each. Those are pretty big numbers for a school that enrolls about 160 students at any given time.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone who responded. I feel a lot better knowing that I am not alone in this. This board has been extremely helpful, especially this past week. I think I have slept an average of 3-4 hours a night because of the stress of this decision! We finally got up the nerve today to put pen to paper and sign all the forms and write the checks for NEC. All week I kept asking her “Are you sure you don’t want to go to IU?” They just built a new reed room! You really liked Ludwig, You have a good friend there already! who has volunteered to take care of your snakes (yes, I said snakes - can’t WAIT to get rid of those!) But it’s still NEC ( and no more snakes!!!)</p>
<p>The money is the big issue. She got a pretty decent scholarship award from them by NEC’s standards. They said there could be more next year when they will be losing 10 bassoons from the studio, so I am keeping my fingers crossed. She took lessons with two to of the three bassoon teachers, all of whom are with BSO or Pops. She liked them both and her own private instructor says they are all great. They get to go to concerts at BSO for free, it’s a cool city, etc. It’s just been hard to wrap my head around the amount of money this is all going to cost, plus she needs a new bassoon ($25K-$35K). We have already made huge financial and personal sacrifices for her music career these past few years sending her to Mannes Prep and the NY Youth Symphony Chamber program in NYC. We even didn’t move when my husband lost his job two years ago and had to take another one down in Texas. He has been commuting back and forth for two years for her. And now we are faced with selling our home NOW in this wonderful housing market we have.</p>
<p>But I guess it paid off in that she improved so much these last two years because of these sacrifices that she got accepted to some great schools and she is performing at Carnegie Hall next week with her chamber ensemble - for which I am SO PROUD I COULD BURST! Would I have rather she applied to the schools that were begging her to because they needed bassoons and/or had lots of money for bassoon? You betcha! But I guess I need to look at this as an investment in her future happiness and just hope that something comes of it. So NEC here she comes! I wish ALL our kids much happiness AND paying jobs down the road, please GOD!</p>