<p>Which is overall better....teachers, people, place, everything!!!! Please help!!</p>
<p>No idea about flute, but McGill has an absolutely fabulous music school, and in a great city.</p>
<p>Quite different. McGill has a top-notch music school and a top-notched reputation as a music school. Congrats if you got in. I’ve heard that Boulder had a rep for jazz music but no way do they have the rep that McGill has. What the reality is of Boulder program, I have not a clue. </p>
<p>Boulder is absolutely gorgeous. Weather is great and the flatirons are amazingly beautiful. Now I love Montreal. It is a great town with so much to offer, but in Jan/Feb be prepared for -10 F daytime temperatures (before factoring in wind chill).</p>
<p>I was offered a lot from Boulder, but my heart feels like it is at McGill! How are the people in McGill…and Boulder!!! I am really stuck</p>
<p>Okay. Here’s the deal. I assume you are doing a performance career because you want a career as a performer. You probably already know that this is a difficult row to hoe. You are going to need courage, stick-to-it-iveness, drive, and talent (and perhaps in that order). And it isn’t going to make you rich, so of course money counts.</p>
<p>Have you actually met with the professors who will be teaching you? (If not, I’d ask why not, but unless you are going to visit, it can’t be remedied.) So if you were my son or daughter, I’d make you write out a list of questions, and, yes, CALL THEM. You want to get a feel as to whether these are people you want to spend four years with. Read what they have on the university websites, then google their names - see what comes up.</p>
<p>Then you want to know if any the performance students from the school ever make it as pros. You can be sure that is generally true at McGill, though you’d have to check on UColorado. But what about flute? Then you want to know about performance opportunities - there are the usual ones at the schools, but what about in the surrounding town or city?</p>
<p>I know this sounds like a lot to find out in so little time, but suck it up and go for it. There’s a lot riding on what you find out.</p>
<p>Thank you very much mini! I have only met the teacher at Boulder and she seemed really nice. I just feel like the caliber OVERALL in Colorado will not be as high as at McGill. I want to be an orchestral player, so the quality of the orchestra at the college I decide to go to should be good…I think McGill is MUCH better for that. However, I have not met the teacher at McGill. I do love cities and Montreal would be amazing, but the 75,000 scholarship that Boulder offered me is hard to turn away from.</p>
<p>You must be quite amazingly good for McGill to offer you a place without an audition?</p>
<p>Anyhow, here’s where you can find the faculty: (there seem to be 5 flute teachers)</p>
<p>[Woodwinds</a>, Brass and Percussion Area](<a href=“http://www.mcgill.ca/music/performance/woodwinds/]Woodwinds”>http://www.mcgill.ca/music/performance/woodwinds/)</p>
<p>As for the money, I have no idea what your family can afford, so I really can’t comment. Usually, I would say take the money and run. But the odds of a performance career are so poor (you already know that) that you really need to figure out where or how you can up the odds a little. I don’t know the answer to that, but you have to do your homework and determine it as best you can. </p>
<p>Good luck! (One of my d’s is a musicology graduate student at Princeton, but McGill was a strong second choice.)</p>
<p>haha I wish, but I sent in a DVD instead. Thanks for your help</p>
<p>I’m surprised. I knew that performance tapes were used for invitation to audition purposes but I thought auditions were a flat-out requirement at McGill.</p>
<p>No, they look at them the same as a live audition :)</p>
<p>Let us know what you find out in your explorations.</p>
<p>I will! Thanks again for all your help</p>
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<p>This is good advice. But, I would suggest reaching out to graduating seniors in flute at these schools and ask them for direct feedback on their experiences. After all, in your instrument, it could easily be that the better teachers are in Boulder. In your field, any professional gig will be by audition so it doesn’t matter much where you went to school, it matters how you perform. It is also a dilemma whether to be the big fish in the little pond or the small fish in the big pond or more specifically, will being first chair in flute at Boulder provide more orchestra invites to put on your CV versus being second chair at McGill? </p>
<p>$75,000 in scholarships is nice but the key number is what it WILL cost you to go to either school. McGill is approximately $28,000 Canadian for non-Canadian residents for the first year and (likely) cheaper after you move out of the dorms after first year. So that’s about 21,500 in U.S. dollars. Say, Boulder is 10,000 after your scholarship is applied. If it’s your dime, that’s over 40,000 in real savings over your college years. If it’s your parents dime, I’d ask them if they will give you the $40,000 (post graduation) that you saved by going to Boulder. If they agree, that can pay for perhaps two years of living expenses while you try to make it as a performing flutist.</p>
<p>Thank you very much ctyankee…I have decided to go to Boulder 
The only worry now is if I will have the opportunity to perform due to all the graduate students…</p>
<p>Congrats. Best of luck to you!</p>