I’m a junior (senior in the fall!) in high school, looking to major in Music Education. I have a list of schools compiled mainly from various internet lists, including Westminster Choir College, Oberlin, Duquesne, Ithaca, and Susquehanna just to name a few. I’m having a lot of trouble figuring out what my chances are of getting in. It seems like with academics, it’s pretty straightforward - your SAT scores and GPA give you a pretty good idea of where you stand with each college, and which are safety schools versus reach schools. With music it seems a lot more subjective - I, at least, have no idea what to expect in terms of where I could get in and where I couldn’t.
Some background on me - I’ve been in chorus since 4th grade, private lessons since 6th, piano off and on (but I would be focusing on vocal/choral music education). I’ve done District Chorus for the past four years, but did not get into All State last year. I’m a section leader (Soprano 1) in my school chorus this year, was a student director in our school’s Broadway Night production for the middle school group this year, participate in a choir/conducting class outside of school, and will be leading one of our a cappella groups next year. I would consider myself to be pretty good in a group setting, but less of a solo singer - I really hate auditions, and am worried about screwing it up. I recently started preparing audition repertoire with my new voice teacher - we’re looking at Batti Batti from Don Giovanni and Fair Robin I Love from Tartuffe. I’m a pretty good sight reader, and I have a pretty good range, but there are definitely better singers out there. Academics are not really an issue - 1550 on the new SAT, 34 ACT, 3.93 GPA, IB Diploma, and I think I can get pretty good teacher recommendations. But I have no idea what to expect in terms of acceptance to music schools.
So my actual questions: Am I prepared for college music auditions? How selective are the schools I mentioned (for voice)? What do schools consider for music ed majors admissions - just the audition, or are there interviews/essays/resumes involved? How does music education compare to vocal performance, in terms of audition selectivity? How do they compare in terms of audition process? Also, are there any other relatively small east coast schools that have good music education programs that you would recommend?
Thanks! Any feedback is welcome 
Hey there,
Hate to burst your bubble but Oberlin’s music education program is graduate-only. I should know because I am currently a master of music teaching student there (vocal emphasis). However, if you really want to go to Oberlin, you could either do a BMus in vocal performance or a BA in musical studies as an undergrad and then apply to the 14-month masters program in your senior year. (We have people in the program who have graduated from Oberlin in both of those majors).
All that said, I want to be able to accurately answer your question about how prepared you are to get in to Oberlin (since I don’t know your other schools all that well), but it’s hard to do without knowing how well you sing. The fact that you didn’t make your all-state chorus strikes me as a bit of a red flag, because it’s extremely difficult to get into Oberlin for voice and if there are several better sopranos in your state, you better believe there will be several better sopranos from all over the world applying to Oberlin (and the same would go for any other top-flight conservatory).
Now, I don’t know what you sound like so it’s entirely possible you just had a bad audition and you’re really a talented singer. I also don’t want to tell you that you can’t achieve your goals, like a certain heavily-involved member of this forum told me when I was a freshman in college under a different username… (Hint, she was wrong.) But I’m guessing you could stand to do some more research on all of this.
I’m going to assume that you’re from the east coast based on your schools of choice and the fact that you’re using SAT instead of ACT. If you’re willing to venture to my home state, Lawrence University (my alma mater) and University of Wisconsin-Madison are both good schools for choral/general music education for which you definitely have the grades and the musical standards for admission are high, but not too high. (Also, they both have great voice faculty.) I’d also say to look at DePaul, Roosevelt and VanderCook in Chicago. New York University might also be a good fit for you. Also, I realize that these schools aren’t small nor on the east coast (except NYU), but they’re all good programs.
One thing about music schools is that they’re almost all really small even if they belong to big universities so unless you want a certain type of experience like an LAC vibe, I don’t think it really matters a whole lot how big the school attached to a music school is.
Hope this helps.