<p>How important do you think the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) accreditation is? Will this be a deciding factor in your final selection? </p>
<p>Not important.</p>
<p>Consider that Juilliard and Rice among others are not members. I should not think it would be a deciding factor, </p>
<p>Yes, not important.</p>
<p>It never crossed my or my daughter’s mind. Actually, because of this thread, I just looked up NASM member organizations. It does seem that while most conservatories and music schools have signed on – NEC, Curtis, CIM, Colburn, Peabody, etc. – some (Juilliard, Rice, MSM, etc.) haven’t bothered with it…but like others said, not important. </p>
<p>We never considered NASM accreditation either when looking at schools. However, NASM does hold its’ member schools to high standards of quality and schools must pass periodic intensive evaluations and comply with NASM regulations regarding student recruitment, acceptance deadlines, curriculum, ethics, etc. So, for a lesser known school (unlike those named above), not having NASM accreditation could perhaps be a concern or at least something to be aware of.</p>
<p>I don’t think a school not having it necessarily means anything, given that some of the top schools don’t bother. NASM has rules, like the student having until May 1st to decide, on ‘poaching’ students who have been accepted to other schools and so forth, so it at the least gives music students some recourse if they feel a school that is a member has acted unethically. I don’t think to be honest being NASM certified tells you a lot about how good a potential school is, it is true an uncertified, unknown school may be problematic, but there are NASM member schools whose music programs aren’t particularly that good in terms of who they recruit/get, so you can’t use that to really give you all that much information IME. </p>
<p>True, musicpmt. I was just speaking from the perspective of having gone through an NASM evaluation at a college–every aspect was evaluated from curriculum to facilities–it was extremely detailed and certainly made us examine our entire department and program offerings very extensively. It certainly doesn’t probably have all that much of an impact on the strength of a program, just that it meets the NASM requirements. I was just thinking of small, rather unknown schools that aren’t evaluated by any accrediting agency–for me personally it might raise a red flag or at least make me want to look a bit deeper into the program, simply because of my personal experience.</p>
<p>@clarimom-</p>
<p>Agreed, it might be a red flag if the program is unknown and is not an NASM member, might be an even bigger one. I don’t know much of the details of NASM accredidation, but most such standards IMO tend to focus on whether the school teaches certain things, if kids graduate, if they follow certain procedures/processes and so forth. I have background in quality management (yeah, I know, an oxymoron), and standards like ISO 9000 often boil down to filing the write paperwork that auditors can see, and sometimes is so focused on process it forgets about the product…One thing I would guess NASM certification tells you is that in certain things, you will know what to expect. </p>
<p>I would suggest that anyone who is interested or wondering about a non-accredited school check out the NASM website–in particular read through the NASM Handbook. Of particular importance is the section outlining essential competencies (knowledge and skills) required for each specific degree program. If a school does not hold NASM accreditation, it is important that they still provide a curriculum to develop these competencies in the students, as this is the understood ‘norm’ of which each degree program should look like. If you earn a degree in music it would be expected in the professional world that you have gained the knowledge/skills expected for the degree (whether or not the school was NASM accredited–the standards are still essential). </p>
<p>I’m not impressed with the certification. I’ve come across NASM accredited schools that don’t offer Italian for VP majors (some just have diction courses and no languages at all!) and others who blatantly disregard the performance requirements for certain majors. Do your own investigation and make sure that the schools you’re considering will prepare you for graduate school and beyond.</p>
<p>@clarimom-</p>
<p>If you are talking music performance, then the NASM standards mean very little in the sense that what gets you jobs is being able to play well.I haven’t looked at NASM standards on instruments, but in the end you don’t put out a resume and show the classes you have taken like with ‘real’ jobs, in music it basically comes down to how you play (talking performance here). There is no doubt that things like preparation in music theory or ear training will bolster this, but in the end, it is how well the student is prepared. MM pointed out that an NASM school she knows of doesn’t require Italian, yet try to get a job doing classical singing without being able to do that…and NASM only says the school meets what they think is required, which may or may not reflect what is really needed out there. It does at least let you know the minimum standards the school has to meet, but in the end, it really comes down to checking out the program, rather than letting NASM or any outside party vet it by itself. </p>
<p>Absolutely, musicpmt–I wasn’t acting as an advocate of NASM, merely pointing out that if you’re unsure of the quality of a school that has no type of accrediting agency holding it accountable to standards, then you should check it out carefully (and I used the NASM standards as a possible baseline for minimal requirements). For example, I know of several online programs that, while one can certainly get a degree, do not provide many of the essentials usually required for that degree. Certainly, a school that does not offer Italian isn’t meeting the essentials to prepare for a career in classical singing (and I’m surprised that NASM evaluations did not point this out). There are non-NASM schools that are excellent and NASM schools that are not–and absolutely check out any school carefully. It has been over a decade since I was chairperson of a department of music, but at that time NASM was well-respected and accreditation sought after. I do not know how the agency is viewed at this time but am only going on my past experiences with it.</p>
<p>@clarimom-
I understand, I was basically saying the same thing, that it depends on the school and with NASM at least it is saying it meets certain standards and that is not a bad thing, it is just like everything else in music, there never is one answer, it is always “it depends, it is relative, etc” <em>lol</em>. </p>
<p>I would hazard a guess that schools that are establishing themselves, trying to make a name for themselves, will be more likely to want NASM certification as a basis to help give credence to their program, whereas NASM certification would mean little to a school like Juilliard that has the name, so isn’t worth it. I haven’t really looked, but among the schools that are often considered ‘top’ in public perception, it is hit or miss whether they do NASM or not. I definitely don’t want it to sound like NASM isn’t worthwhile or doesn’t have merit, I simply wanted to make people understand that the certification doesn’t mean that a school of music is good (or bad), or more importantly, is a good fit for the student. </p>
<p>Clarimom, I wonder exactly how often evaluations are conducted now and how thorough they are? Give the proliferation in the number of schools, it’s reasonable to think that it might take a longer to make the “rounds” and that things might be done in a more cursory fashion than in the past.
Just speculation on my part…</p>
<p>I can’t really answer to that, MM, as I have been gone from the college arena for awhile. However, the evaluations are done on a ten-year cycle, and you know things can change a lot in ten years. Looking at the NASM Handbook, it appears much the same as I remember, so I am assuming evaluation procedures are the same as well. It was a very intensive process.</p>
<p>Some years back we were looking at California schools, and the main program we looked at was not NASM accredited. After asking repeatedly about this, I was finally told that they were accredited by some other agency and did not feel that the effort was worth it to get the NASM accreditation. I was thinking in those days that maybe a lack of NASM accreditation would affect a Music Ed student more, but this particular school boasted a very high placement rate for their Music Ed grads. So I figured this was not a big deal.</p>
<p>The NASM represents over 600 music colleges in the U.S. The organization was overrun by music education researchers starting in the early 1980s. These are the folks that are proud to be “researchers” rather than musicians. The standards and aspects of innovation of NASM are quite low, so one has to wonder why the NASM is relevant. We all know that at least 50% of music departments at US colleges are pathetic and shouldn’t exist as degree-granting programs. If your son or daughter wants to major in music performance or education, carefully look at the college, ensembles, faculty and its graduates. Look for examples of excellence in programs, because being mediocre in music equals unemployment. It doesn’t matter if the department or school of music is a member of the NASM.</p>
<p>NASM accreditation is like any such thing, it simply is that the certifying body decided that the candidate met their needs…which in turn raises the question does the standards it promotes mean anything? The value of accreditation is you can look at the standards they publish and know the school follows them, it gives you a minimum baseline.A lot of NASM from my limited exposure to it seems to govern how they admit students and about procedural issues, from what I can tell there isn’t much that says “This school is NASM certified, which means they offer great orchestral, ensemble and indiivual performance opportunities, and their teachers have been found to turn out great musicians”, but rather says the school follows their guidelines.</p>
<p>Put it this way, Muon is right, you would probably be better served by trying to figure out if the particular school has teachers that turn out good quality students, if it has good ensembles, and so forth, as we talk about on here all the time. Some really great schools don’t belong to NASM (Juilliard comes to mind), a lot of mediocre ones do, and I can guarantee you that whether the school has NASM accreditation or not will have zero impact on whether the kid gets into a top level grad program or is able to work as a musician, whereas the quality of the program will. </p>