<p>Any advice or info on odds of getting into a music conservatory for Voice; received auditions at all schools applied to including top tier. Althought it varies from school to school, how long a shot is an admit offer statistically, 1 out of 3? 1 out of 10? Any advice welcome, new parent to all of this.</p>
<p>That’s a loaded question. Without knowing a bit of musical background, voice type, training, choice of programs it is at best an educated guess. </p>
<p>Assuming one has had viable professional assessments, some idea of how one’s talent and potential relates to the “typical” auditioning pool at a given institution, and has picked a range of competitiveness of programs, you may well have a shot.</p>
<p>Any audition based admit is a crap-shoot, regardless of talent. There’s just too many variables.</p>
<p>Many conservatories have statistics on their application to admit ratios. As violadad said, audition-based admits are a crap shoot and the variables surrounding admissions any given year change (applicant pool, current students, studio openings…so many things). But, I know that as a parent it helps to have at least some quantitative idea of chances, even though it’s only a small portion of what makes up who’s admitted and who isn’t.</p>
<p>Yes, it is a crap shoot with an enormous number of variables in the equation (year, instrument, voice type, studio applied for, . . .), but here are some representative statistics from College Navigator for undergraduate admissions for the fall of 2008 (and no doubt, things are different every year):</p>
<p>Juilliard: of 2138 applicants, 8% were admitted and 75% of those admitted enrolled (interesting side note: 10% of male applicants were admitted and only 6% of female applicants were admitted; this might be explained by self-selection: only 913 males applied while 1225 females applied)</p>
<p>Cleveland Institute of Music: of 483 applicants, 34% were admitted and 26% of those chose to enroll (38% of the males were admitted and 30% of the females were admitted)</p>
<p>New England Conservatory of Music: of 1074 applicants, 32% were admitted and 25% of those admitted chose to enroll</p>
<p>San Francisco Conservatory: of 337 applicants, 44% were admitted and 39% of those admitted chose to attend.</p>
<p>As with all statistics, one needs to be careful when interpretting. A lower admit percentage does not necessarily mean that a school is any more discriminating or has a more capable student body; it might merely mean that it gets a lot of very bad applicants. There are many reasons that some schools have high percentages of accepted students enrolling (and many of these reasons have nothing to do with actual school quality): school reputation, financial aid, the nature of the applicant pool (i.e. some schools attract a local following that does not apply elsewhere).</p>
<p>Some more recent stats on percentages of applicants admitted (from the College Board site): Juilliard 7%; Curtis 4%; NEC 31%; Peabody 39%.</p>
<p>And remember that those are overall averages for the whole school. The percentage admitted could well be a lot smaller for female singers, for example. I think the imbalance in male/female vocal applicants may go a long way toward explaining the numbers at Juilliard.</p>
<p>Overall numbers really don’t mean much. You have to know what is open in the studios for your voice type. Then you have no idea how many others are also applying for those spots. You should have a safety school in your list. Everything else is unpredictable.</p>
<p>Pretty good rundown from other people. The key is that the overall average may not indicate much, depending what you are applying in. Applying as a countertenor, where the school has openings and few are in that range, might be 60% admitted; be a violin at Juilliard, where there are relatively few openings and a huge load of pretty talented students, it is going to be less then 8%; do it on the viola, it might be 20%…</p>
<p>The other thing to keep in mind is you might be ‘admitted’ in the sense of passing the audition, but not end up wanting to go there (or not being able to because no teacher wanted/could work with you) because they gave you a teacher you didn’t think would work for you (lot of kids come into Juilliard and put down names like Chao Lin, Kyung Wha Chung or Louis Kaplan on their form, and some of them when they (almost assuredly) don’t get one of the celebrity teachers, don’t go there)…</p>
<p>It is a crapshoot in some respects, timing , availability as well as talent plays a role.</p>
<p>Yep…much depends on available slots…</p>
<p>For example I believe Juilliard took 8 undergrad vocalist last year, almost all of which were sopranos…so sorry sopranos, my guess is this year they won’t need as many (but that’s just me talking).</p>
<p>San Fran Conservatory had a larger yield in the vocal department than expected…add to that in recent years applications have been increasing (probably due to the $80 million facility that was opened 4 years ago…it is beautiful!)…DD says she’s heard they won’t be offering as many spots this year. (She couldn’t get into one of her freshman classes this year because it was too full so will have to take it next year).</p>
<p>I’ve heard that CIM also had a larger yield than expected last year…so??</p>
<p>So you see there is much more involved than whether you are talented or not…</p>
<p>Thanks for all the input… yes, a crapshoot, depends on the part, the openings, the studio, etc.</p>
<p>Yep, opera-mom is right about CIM, too. They had more students accept their offers of admission than they expected, so they ended up with a bigger class then they counted on. It stands to reason therefor, that there would be fewer places open for the next class, but none of us are privy to what administration is planning. There is no way to figure the odds on acceptances nor the number of students who will then enroll, because the applicant pool changes every year. Then you factor in the teachers who may be cutting back prior to retiring or new teachers just learning the lay of the land and the numbers could change again. And there’s the old standard, “you have to find a teacher who wants to work with you”. You have to put all of that out of your mind and just go for the audition, do your very best and see where the chips fall.
violindad, I am a bit skeptical of the stats simply because I was told by two of those schools that they no longer release those types of numbers. We’ve seen things here before that turn out to have been “lifted” from old lists and numbers plugged in to some formulas that the schools don’t approve. Do you have a link to the site? It would be very hard to figure out how they applied to each discipline within the scope of the majors because some, like voice, have far more girls applying than males, and there may be 2 openings for harp but 20 for violin.
Maybe this Forum needs as resident statistician?!</p>
<p>My son auditioned at Indiana last weekend for vocal performance. When I asked about the “numbers”, I was told that last year – across all voice types — 282 were invited to audition and 87 were subsequently admitted. I do not know how many eventually enrolled. I also do not know how many were NOT invited to audition based upon the pre-screen CD. </p>
<p>Oh, shucks — I just looked again at the thread topic and realized you were asking about “conservatories”. Oh well, maybe these numbers will still be of interest.</p>
<p>TenorDad, I think most of us would count IU as a conservatory, so thank you for the information. My daughter also auditioned last weekend and we went to an info session but I either didn’t hear or didn’t retain those numbers. I appreciate your post.</p>
<p>glassharmonica:</p>
<p>I obtained the IU numbers during a conversation with one of the admissions staff folks sitting at a table in the MAC commons area. She looked it up in her records while I was speaking with her.</p>
<p>Mezzo’sMama: I won’t put the link here because I understand that there is a rule against that. However, if you google “college navigator,” it is the first site on the list. It appears to be a US government site (***.ed.gov), and I got the impression that the statistics it contains (on things like admissions, financial aid, retention and degree completion) were ones that schools of a certain size or type are probably required to submit to some federal agency. As I mentioned, the stats were for the fall of 2008 admissions and certainly things change every year. There is no breakdown by major and as we have all mentioned, admissions chances can vary tremendously among instruments/voice types.</p>
<p>While these stats may have limited or no value for parents and students who have been researching for years and who know the breakdowns on admissions statistics for every school for the past several years, I think for people who are new to the process of music school applications, they can give them a general feel for the lay of the land in the strange, wondrous and new world of music school admissions. Let’s face it, most guidance counsellors and parents new to the process do not have any clue as to how rigorous the admissions process is or how slim the chances of admission are for even very accomplished musicians.</p>
<p>TenorDad has the right approach: ask one of the admissions staff. Some might not know or might not have access to the data or might not be permitted to reveal it, but it never hurts to ask.</p>
<p>TenorDad: one question: Am I correct in assuming that the 87 who were admitted were April 1 admissions, many of whom would have chosen to go elsewhere, rather than August enrolments/matriculations? It would also be interesting to know how many vocalists actually applied (presumably a much larger number than the 282 that were invited to audition).</p>
<p>violindad:</p>
<p>Actually, now that you ask, I’m not 100% certain — but the words she used seemed to indicate she was giving me the number that the school chose to admit — not the number who actually enrolled (she used the phrase “were admitted”). OTOH, I may have misunderstood and perhaps she gave me the number of vocalists who were both admitted AND enrolled or matriculated. She did not share (altho she may have had the figures) the total number who were considered during the prescreening process. She only shared the number of vocalists “who auditioned” — which would also be somewhat different than the number who were “invited to audition”. </p>
<p>So, in the end, I’m not sure what my numbers mean!</p>
<p>About two years ago I posted a somewhat similar thread, although I was hoping to provide guidance to parents or students who were thinking about conservatories, but did not know if they were good enough to even apply. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/458455-how-determine-your-childs-ability.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/458455-how-determine-your-childs-ability.html</a>.</p>
<p>At the time my son had applied to both conservatories (linked to a university) and to music programs within universities. Like your child he had at least passed the preliminary CD screening and had done a few auditions. I looked at the acceptance rate at Peabody for singers and specifically for Tenor1s and felt that he had a good shot. He was rejected. He was waitlisted at NEC (his only other true Conservatory), but accepted to all of the music programs in universities that he applied to. Like the Top 10 Universities or LACs, top Conservatories are anything but a sure thing. Obviously, as you move from Tier One to Tier Two and lower Conservatories your chances will improve.</p>
<p>The numbers don’t tell it all. For auditioned programs there are a number of factors:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The strength of the students audition RELATIVE to the others who audition. Simply put…the schools accept the top students from THAT audition round. There is no predicting who will show up and who won’t. This his hard…students are not accepted based on meeting a “criteria”…they are accepted based on meeting a criteria AND being in the top group to do so.</p></li>
<li><p>Number of openings varies from year to year…and sometimes schools have a good grasp on that and other times there are unknowns that can play into this. For example, a school may think that they are going to have ONE flute opening, but then the flute player has to take a medical leave for their last semester senior year and will be returning in the fall to complete their degree. Poof…that opening disappears. OR…they could think they only have one opening and then a student switches majors, drops out or whatever and there are more.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thumper hit the nail on the head, there is no ‘acceptable level’ per se that gets admittance, it is the relative level that determines acceptance in any given year. I can give an example, based on the audition process at Juilliard pre college on violin over the past several years, to give you an idea of how it can change:</p>
<p>1)The size of the program has been shrunk from what it once was; they used to have close to 350 not that many years ago, today it is 280 give or take (I don’t know what the final number was, could be slightly higher then then). In the case of the violin, a lot of the shrinkage was in that department. </p>
<p>2)In prior years, based on graduation, you could count on there being 20+ openings on violin in any given year. With the shrinkage, that number plummeted significantly for the violin.</p>
<p>-The first year 3 years ago) that my son auditioned, they had only 6 or so openings.</p>
<p>-two years ago it was around 7 or 8 I was told (he just missed)</p>
<p>-Last year when he got in for this year, it was supposed to be 10 (I hear it got pushed up a bit, teachers challenges and so forth). </p>
<p>It means that had he been applying 4 or 5 years ago, he might have easily gotten in, but based on the number taken and level of applicant, it took him several attempts (these days in violin a lot of the kids take 4 or more auditions to get in)…on top of that, this year reputedly had a really high level of auditioners, supposedly because kids thought it was going to be an easier year then the past (it was, but only slightly, in terms of number) so a lot more kids applied,and a lot of really high level auditionees. </p>
<p>3)Most places seem (and I am going to be cautious here, I don’t claim to speak for every program, etc) to have some sort of established cutoff line. I know at Juilliard Pre college they seem to on the instruments I am familiar with, if you score below that line, you are not even considered (that line might move up or down, I don’t know for sure). So there there can be a standard to shoot for.</p>
<p>Violin FYI is switching, according to the website, to using prescreen via dvd/cd to week out applicants (in the past, you applied, you auditioned, as much as 140 or so). Now they are moving to accepting the top 40 or so to audition, then deciding from there (they are also doing an early/late admission it looks like). probably closer to a college audition process I would gather.</p>
<p>4)There are other factors beyond ‘doing well enough’ on the audition. They may very well not offer a spot, even though the applicant is better then many of their existing students as a hypothetical, because openings didn’t materialize, or because there is a sudden financial crisis that needs closing (I have seen or heard of this both ways, where slots were either closed or new ones opened due to financial contingencies), it can happen. Or someone doesn’t leave, comes back from a leave of abscence or the most common, none of the teachers have an open slot and/or want to work with the applicant.</p>
<p>About all the admissions numbers give you is a rule of thumb about relative ease/difficulty, kind of like the odds on making point in a craps game, but like a craps game throwing dice on an uneven surface, those odds may not tell you all that much. </p>
<p>Probably the best bet is to get a realistic assesment of your abilities/strong points/weak points, and then apply where it seems likely you have a chance. Obviously,that assesment is problematic, in that does the person really know what the levels are? But that is another questions…</p>
<p>We’re going through this now. Child is on an airplane for live audition #1, already did a regional audition. Everything above, or a variation of it, is consistent with what we’ve heard and learned. I’ll add that there’s a significant personal factor that seems to be involved. There are a number of musicians that have “ins” with teachers, institutions, judges, etc. That was apparent to us recently in a competition where, in addition to the obvious subjectivity, some people who seemed hooked made the finals over others (not necessarily my child) who may have played better. Of course, one can’t know for sure because so much of what is done in this business is done with an opacity that lends itself to little review, including peer review.</p>
<p>Bottom line for me: ability, achievement, etc. are all important, but don’t discount people taking care of their own. When there are six openings and some of them are impliedly promised to hooked applicants (current private students, children of colleagues, children of administrators, children of professional musicians, etc.) there really aren’t six openings.</p>
<p>As far as “knowing” your current level, it’s an educated guess at best. My child has soloed with an orchestra after winning their competition. Child got good audience and press reviews and raves from the musicians. Was principal at a major camp last summer. But a former teacher (thank goodness we got out of this one) thought: moderate ability and, IMO child didn’t get that teacher’s best effort. This teacher really held the student back with low expectations (something that struck me as odd when the child won the principal seat at that institution after a blind audition). With new instruction, the student made huge strides, but to even get in to see that new instructor for a trial, we had to beg and persist.</p>
<p>It’s a very tight teaching community with very few openings for students and even fewer openings for the unhooked. What are your chances? Well, if you have great ability, have a pedigree, have been a featured performer (From the Top, solo work with orchestra, etc.), and know the right people, your chances are very good. But in the absence of all of the above, you can’t be sure if you’re looking at the top conservatories; you’re reduced to educated guessing in an arena where it’s impossible to know all the variables.</p>
<p>You can’t even be sure on pre-screens. A recent (unhooked) Curtis admit didn’t even get by a pre-screen at a lesser conservatory. Figure that one out.</p>
<p>Work hard and persist. Then pray.</p>