<p>I’m not sure how the list was compiled, but someone below suggest that the data is from a 1994 survey. So that might explain why Colburn and Bard aren’t mentioned-- their programs didn’t exist in 1994.</p>
<p>And Shepherd was just a music department at Rice :)</p>
<p>^That was exactly my point in pointing out what I suspect was the source – I was suspicious that they’d used the 1994 ranking plus a mix of others because of both the inclusions and exclusions ;)</p>
<p>This list has been making the facebook rounds, with a lot of funny comments and analysis. I also wondered when it would show up here. If you take away the ranking, and just take it as a list of potential music programs to look at, it could be a useful list to give a novice a place to start. I believe that it was created by using 1994 and 1997 rankings of grad programs, and, as many have pointed out, doesn’t necessarily use the same criteria most of us would use.</p>
<p>When we were looking at schools for the first time, way back when, I used a different ranking book (Performing Arts Majors College Guide) as a starting place. The key is to start there, and not end there.</p>
<p>If I were making a list (and I am happy to say that I have no reason any more to do so!!) I would make it instrument and degree specific. I would probably include “peer review” and student opinion. But I would also include cost, selectivity, teacher, ensemble level, studio size, and the employment history of graduates. And probably other things as well, specific to my goals. I’d guess my list might look different from what someone else might come up with. As it should.</p>
<p>You know binx, I’ve been thinking just how valuable a round up by department, size, financing, standout faculty, philosophy snapshot, peer and student assessment would be. I wonder if there are enough music freshmen in the world to make such an effort fiscally viable. I am thinking such a “guide” might be too fluid for an actual print publication.</p>
<p>So I nominate the dads to craft the surveys and compile the data, and I’ll create the for-small-fee download center where folks can download the directory 
We’ll profit share to help pay for our kids’ educations! ;)</p>
<p>binx&kmc- what a great idea!! We noticed in doing our search this year, just how instrument specific the search needs to be. Many of D’s friends applied to great music schools which, for a variety of reasons, were not top choices for flute this year. It would have been nice to have access to this info before we started the pre-screen/audition process.</p>
<p>And you’re right, it would need to be a fluid list because faculty and situations change so frequently in the music world.</p>
<p>It would need to be teacher specific - hence the popularity of message boards. Of course, if you read enough about a teacher, you will find that he/she is both a devil and a delight.</p>
<p>Rankings may be useful in creating a bucket list, the same way asking on forums like this for a list of schools/programs great for X, but beyond that I don’t think they are worth much, and if you follow those rankings as if they were objective, you could end up at the wrong school for the student, or be unnecessarily upset if the kid didn’t get into X when they got into Y which might even be better (I attended a seminar on music school admissions, presented by admissions people from ‘top 10’ music schools, and their answer about USNWR rankings was they wish they didn’t exist, that they presented a false view of what a great music program was, and also made a lot of work for them, dealing with parents and kids distraught they didn’t get into their school and therefore they now had no hope of a music career and worse, being accused of being frauds, cheats, biased, etc…all because the people believed the rankings meant that going to that school was the only way to become a successful musician, not because it had good teaching, but because it was ranked #1 or 2 or whatever).</p>
<p>[Top</a> Music Schools Ranking in 2010 | U.S. College Rankings](<a href=“http://www.uscollegeranking.org/music/top-music-schools-ranking-in-2010.html]Top”>http://www.uscollegeranking.org/music/top-music-schools-ranking-in-2010.html)</p>
<p>something I saw yesterday, I was surprised by some of them</p>
<p>^ This is the silly list that is being discussed.</p>
<p>Don’t be surprised, 18k. Be skeptical ;)</p>
<p>“However, a few of the factors contribute to our rankings are including SAT/ACT Scores, Percentage of applicants admitted and the percentage of accepted applicants who enrolled, Student-to faculty ratio, student opinion survey, and etc, which were collected from below data sources.”</p>
<p>That tells the story, it explains some of the rankings…rice at 21, peabody at 15, university of cincinatti at 9? From a student perspective, that makes no sense, Shepherd and peabody are tougher admits then cincinatti musically…and UI Champagne 10?</p>
<p>I think this is a great list of decent to great musical schools, but as a master list of relative rankings? nope.</p>
<p>Another look at it: [Are</a> These Music Schools Ranked Right? : Deceptive Cadence : NPR](<a href=“Are These Music Schools Ranked Right? : Deceptive Cadence : NPR”>Are These Music Schools Ranked Right? : Deceptive Cadence : NPR)</p>
<p>almost none of those factors have anything to do as to whether a music program is good or not, they’re doing it straight from numbers for the most part</p>
<p>^ Exactly why these lists are useless other than as a very basic starting point. It’s like comparing pomegranates and kumquats.</p>
<p>Forgive me if I am being repetitive because I have not read this whole thread…</p>
<p>I don’t see how anyone can choose the best music school (or the best business school, medical school, lac etc…) there are too many different factors to take into consideration. </p>
<p>So any times I see a list like this I find myself saying…“that school must be pretty good because someone thinks it is good enough to put on the list…” But I would never choose a school (dog, town to live in, car) simply because someone put in at the top of a list. But it would likely give me a reason to give it some careful consideration. That being said, I would probably have a hard time considering something that ended up on the bottom of someone’s list.</p>
<p>mom2winds – that was my experience exactly. Being a mother with no knowledge of the music world, but two kids that wanted to go to music school was tough. It was six years ago that I started the search with my oldest and since then I have come a long way. The lists that I came across were VITAL to the beginning of my search. That being said, this is for all those moms out their who are going into this completely blind :)</p>
<ol>
<li>Indiana University – Bloomington</li>
<li>The Juilliard School</li>
<li>Curtis Inst. of Music</li>
<li>Rice University – Shepherd SOM</li>
<li>University of Rochester – Eastman SOM</li>
<li>Yale School of Music</li>
<li>Northwestern University – Henry and Leigh Bienen SOM</li>
<li>New England Conservatory</li>
<li>University of Michigan SOM</li>
<li>Colburn Conservatory</li>
</ol>
<p>Believe me. There will be thousands that want to quarrel over this list, but just know that these are thought of by many as the top 10. Good luck finding the right school and TEACHER for your child :)</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but I really worry about cc music forum newcomers reading things like “these are thought by many as the top 10” with no qualifications to music genre or instrument. The list posted above is simply incorrect for jazz. So why not at least qualify it as a classical list? I could give countless examples (such as the fact that some of these 10 schools don’t even offer a full jazz curriculum, if at all, that Yale SOM is only a graduate program, etc.) but I would be a broken record. People simply need to start with a bigger list than 10.</p>
<p>I’m trying to figure out for whom this ranking might apply. Certainly not voice.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t view the list as a ranking (I don’t think that musicmom84 intended to suggest that Indiana tops the other 9), but as a list. It does seem to be a fairly good list for classical instrumental performance, with all the usual provisos (including the previously mentioned fact that Yale seems out of place in that it has almost no undergrad). For any given student, several of the schools would not work (no school is ideal for every instrument and each student will have preference re: stand-alone conservatory vs. full university, urban vs. rural, northeast vs. not northeast, etc.), so yes, a person would definitely have to look at other schools, especially since admission at a few of these 10 is a bit of a gamble for most students. </p>
<p>I think that we should give parents more credit (as mom2wionds and musicmom84 do): most parents won’t blindly assume that the list is definitive for all instruments and students, but rather will use the list as a starting place for consideration. One’s research has to start someplace. In any case, students that are serious prospects for places like Curtis and Colburn almost invariably have teachers that are well-informed and well-connected and can offer good advice.</p>
<p>I’m not sure any list I would have created would have been any better, but I’ll still add my little quibble: I think that Cleveland Institute of Music would outrank about half the schools on the list for quite a few instruments (and some will argue that Oberlin and Peabody might be more deserving of recognition than a couple on the list).</p>