<p>Hello! So I have some questions regarding whether a liberal arts college/university or a conservatory is preferable for undergrad? I'm sure it varies based on the individual, so I'll give a little background:
Music-wise, music is my life: I am in 4 choral groups, 6 orchestral groups, and 2 band groups, leads in musicals, etc, both in and out of school. I teach 14 students, and I've played piano for 10 years, violin for 7, and sang with a private instructor for 3 years (I have done choral work for much longer!) After the results of many festivals, competitions, and camps, I have decided that I will audition for college as a vocal performance major, although I plan to still continue violin as a minor or secondary instrument.
School-wise, my stats are:
GPA unweighted: 4.0
GPA weighted: 4.61
ACT: 36 composite and all parts (11/12 on writing portion)
SAT: 2210 (yeah I'm using ACT!) :)
AP Scholar with Honor (and hopefully after this year, knock on wood, it'll be National AP Scholar!)
The schools I'm looking at are: Northwestern, Ann Arbor, Vanderbilt, Carengie Mellon, Johns Hopkins/Peabody, Eastman/Rochester, Rice, and Yale (I visited Oberlin but did not like the vibe, I'm more a city person!)
The big question I have is whether I should look at conservatories too, such as Juilliard or New England. Based on feedback I have received from various college professors, I believe I am good enough to get into some of these (if I keep practicing very hard!) However, I don't really know how these conservatories work. Are they focused on performance only? Although I have no real academic interests like math or science, I do enjoy English and history, especially when relating them to music. I don't really want to double degree in an academic subject, but I would like to learn about music not only in a performance light, but also an academic light, such as learning about the neurology, history, ethnomusicology, composition, etc of music. I would also like to continue violin. I want to be not just a vocal performer, but a musician.
All in all, I would like to be a completely well-rounded musician, and I don't know if I would gain this better at a more academic institution or a strict conservatory? I don't want to have to waste any time on math courses or anything (AP Calc BC was torture enough, that's never happening again!) Any advice or school suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I know I am being very wishy-washy about this, but it has always been my dream to go to school for music and I want to do it right! :)</p>
<p>Fyi Harvard has a double degree program with New England Conservatory, as does Tufts. Harvard’s is a BA/MA program and you can major in anything you like at Harvard, plus do music as an extracurricular. Tufts’ program with NEC is a BA/BM with the major at Tufts something other than music.</p>
<p>You mentioned not wanting to waste time taking math. If I were you, I would check details at some of these schools concerning distribution requirements. For instance, Harvard requires 8 (last time I looked) “gen ed” classes including quantitative reasoning (can be a non-math course like health policy) and two sciences. Yale has even more distribution requirements. Harvard’s music major is 50% of all classes taken, which is a high percentage for a non-conservatory. That really appealed to my daughter. (Conservatory classes tend to be 2/3-3/4 music; many colleges have 1/4-1/3 music classes for music majors.)</p>
<p>Brown and Amherst have no distribution requirements so there is free choice of classes.</p>
<p>You might enjoy a general academic music major with extracurricular singing and playing, much like you are doing now. Conservatories tend to encourage specializing, as you know, and your music is multi-faceted. Others can speak to this issue with more knowledge. Again, check the websites for actual curricula and course descriptions, at both conservatories and colleges. Conservatories have lots of coursework in addition to practice and performance, and you would get a lot of history there. But generally, course offerings at colleges that are not performance-related, tend to be a bit more extensive and richer I think.</p>
<p>My daughter had a hard time deciding between conservatory and college. She applied to both and decided at the very last minute. Like you, she liked studying music history, and the art and literature that went along with each period of time, and is especially fond of modernism. She may even study some art history to go along with her music, post-grad. She is glad to have gone to college versus conservatory, but she is a composer, not instrumentalist or vocalist, so it is different. And conservatory is a wonderful choice: she was 49% to 51% at the time!</p>
<p>There are people here who understand a lot about the study of vocal performance and the different timetable involved. That may be relevant to your choices as well.</p>
<p>At some point, I believe you will have to study languages :)</p>
<p>You don’t want a double degree but this essay on the Peabody site will be good reading for you: [Double</a> Degrees | Peabody Conservatory](<a href=“http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/conservatory/admissions/tips/doubledegree.html]Double”>http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/conservatory/admissions/tips/doubledegree.html)</p>
<p>You have lots of options!!! It can even make it harder…My advice is to keep many of those options open until you can no longer, meaning even as late as April 30, 2014. Things can change over the next year, believe it or not, and you will get clearer.</p>
<p>Vassar is another school with few distribution requirements and a really strong music department so it would be good to add to your list. The concerts are extremely well attended and enthusiastically supported by students, friends, faculty, the college president is at every orchestra concert, parents and community people. There is certainly the ‘academic’ focus in the music department that you seek. Most of the music majors and non majors are in as many groups as they have time for. Many are double majors. I agree with compmom that you need to check out the course requirements so that you have time to do what you want to do. You may do best in an LAC like Vassar that has a collaborative music and learning environment not a competitive environment. I also agree with compmom that you should apply to and visit different types of schools and through that process, when decision times comes, you will know what is best for you.</p>
<p>Re Vassar, I noticed that an incoming singer to Dawn Upshaw’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard just graduated from Vassar - which proves one can get a non-performance degree and still get into a topnotch program, as long as one is studying privately during undergrad.</p>
<p>Spirit Manager brings up a good point, that no matter where you go or what your major might be, you can study privately. This can also be an alternative to, say, the Harvard/NEC program, saving some money too, at least in the short term.</p>
<p>You might also look at Barnard/Columbia.</p>
<p>My son is very much like you in that he composes, plays the piano and sings. Furthermore, he does them all at a fairly high level. He has always wanted to study other things. He never wanted to go to our school of the arts because there wasn’t as much choice in the academic subjects. He plans on pursuing composition as a major, taking piano for credit and pursuing voice through private lessons and singing in an a cappella group at Yale. Compmom is correct. Yale has very strict distribution requirements. My son was told that as a composition major, he will only be able to take piano for credit for 8 semesters. The other 8 will have to be private pay. He would love to be able to take voice for credit, but there will be no way to complete all the distribution requirements. He was accepted at Yale SCEA, so he didn’t apply many other places. His possible list before his SCEA acceptance was: Yale, Columbia, UPenn, Rice, Vassar, Amherst, Oberlin and Bard.</p>
<p>He did apply to the Shepherd School of Music at Rice for composition. In that program, he would have received a Bachelor of Music and would have been required to take piano for credit all four years. The freshman schedule is basically dictated by your adviser in your major. </p>
<p>He visited Juilliard when he was younger and decided that it wasn’t for him. At least when he visited, he was told that there was no crossover. For example, if you study voice, you would not be able to pursue violin as well. This may have changed since he visited, but that was huge turn-off for him. </p>
<p>There is a joint Juilliard/Columbia program where Juilliard is the primary school and Columbia is secondary. You might want to check that out. I didn’t know that it existed, but I know of a young girl who did the pre-college Juilliard program for violin and will be starting there in the fall as a freshman. She is also going to be studying at Columbia. I don’t know more than that - sorry.</p>
<p>From the information that you posted, I think that you have many choices and I wish you the best of luck.</p>
<p>My son chose conservatory only because he wanted to be in an environment where everyone was focused on music and there was a strong practice ethic. He also wanted to be around other strong musicians who understood his practice ethic. Overall he is very happy. He attends NEC, and if he wants he can take courses at Northeastern or at Tufts. He intends before he graduates to take at least one neuroscience class and also a foreign language class. At first he was not happy with his liberal arts classes at the conservatory and felt as though they were too easy. But then this year he has hand picked those classes and the professors who teach the classes and he is actually excited about them. </p>
<p>Have you ever spent time in a conservatory environment? Have you spent time on any campuses? I think you need to sort out what is best for you over the next four years. The answer to what is best is different for each person. </p>
<p>Also it might help to talk to conservatory students, students in duel degree programs and students who attend a pure liberal arts program such as at Bard or Vassar. The more college upperclassmen you can talk to the more you will understand the different paths that are in front of you. And congratulations it is wonderful to have done so well that you have plenty of options.</p>
<p>“I want to be not just a vocal performer, but a musician.”</p>
<p>I am going to give you the heads up on this. A vocal performer is a musician. I understand what you are saying, that you want to be a well rounded performer…but if you say this to VP faculty during an interview it might not be appreciated in the way you intended.</p>
<p>One other thing about Harvard, and possibly other schools. We kept asking the music department about composers concerts and other opportunities, and they looked blankly at us. These things happen through the office of the arts. (At Tufts, for instance, they DO happen through the music dept.) So if you are investigating orchestras, composers’ performances, operas, whatever, you may have to dig a little deeper at some schools and not make assumptions that those things don’t exist.</p>
<p>Also, at Harvard, my daughter and others got considerable support from both the music dept. and office of the arts to create a composers collective, which now works closely with many undergrad musicians and even visual artists. So if something you want isn’t there, it is a great experience to create it!</p>
<p>She has loved Harvard for music, but also her classes in art, literature and history have been really inspiring.</p>
<p>DD had the same dilemma so she applied to both and had them in the running all the way through to the final decision. In the end Rice, a university with a conservatory level music school, fit her perfectly. It gave her the broad education and exposure to other than music she wanted with the highest level of music, too. So keep all in play and visit, take lessons, audition to both and let yourself develop your own priorties as you make the final decision.</p>