<p>D wants to MINOR in music (even though this is the music MAJOR thread). She plays the flute which has been her love and a very large part of her HS life. She currently is principle flute in the honors program at Mannes Pre-college. I won't bore you now with all her other music opportunities she has participated in. Her hopes are to continue with music at a high level in college. She has the GPA and SATs to potentially get in anywhere so that should not be a major road block. Our questions are:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>What colleges/universities have extensive performance opportunities of high quality for non-majors?</p></li>
<li><p>What schools have excellent flute teachers that a non-major can study with?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>We live on the east coast but are open to any school in the country. </p>
<p>Our daughter also did not want to major in music, but she did want to continue to take private lessons and play in an orchestra. She originally intended to minor in music, but as an engineering major, she just could not fit in the courses. </p>
<p>Here is what she found. You really need to ask at every college about what their policies are. Schools just vary too much. One thing my daughter found was that there were many schools where there were just not enough ensembles for a non-major to be guaranteed a seat in the orchestra or wind ensemble (and my kid is an oboe/English horn player…there are far fewer of those than flutes). What DD did was…she contacted the heads of all the music departments to find out what opportunities she might have at their schools. IF they said there were opportunities for non-majors, then she contacted the applied instructor on her instrument to discuss lessons (we were willing to pay for them…as it happens, her school does not charge her for her private lessons as long as she continues to play in their orchestra). </p>
<p>DD found that the ensemble issue was perhaps the most challenging thing for her to reconcile in her college search. Some schools simply said NO to her. BUT the music folks in all instances were very, very helpful.</p>
<p>You can PM me for more info if you’d like. BUT really, contact those music departments. They are very forthcoming with information.</p>
<p>I can’t help you with the specifics of a school for flute. But we did go through the process looking for a program for our daughter a few years ago, and I learned a few things along the way that I’ll share with you, in case they might help. Here is what I remember:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>First, we looked for schools that had a program in her major area. My D’s area of interest was linguistics, with German and Chinese languages. Only then did we start looking at their music programs. The major is where you want to focus first!</p></li>
<li><p>We kept a list. D’s was on a Word doc. First page was just a list of all the schools that offered both linguistics and music. It was a long list. Maybe 60 - 75 schools. Then we scoured the websites for things that D cared about, and things I cared about (like price or scholarship availability). After each school’s name, we wrote yes, no, or maybe - with a short one or two word reason. The reason didn’t have to make sense to anybody besides us.</p></li>
<li><p>Then D started exploring the music depts. of her yes schools (all online) - the list is now down to maybe 20 schools that meet all of her big requirements. She wrote emails to the music department, asking about how welcome non-majors would be in performance groups or in music classes. We found out that a “great” music school was probably not going to be in her best interests. She would be competing with music majors for orchestra spots, and might spend all 4 years happy to get in at all. (She’s a violinist). </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Then she started keeping more detailed info about the schools that made her short-list.</p>
<ol>
<li> Her final list had 7-10 schools. Then we started the visits to meet the violin teacher and have sample lessons. We eliminated a couple more schools from that list.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>Two that remained on her list that you might want to look hard at are Emory in Atlanta, and St. Olaf in Minnesota. Both have excellent music programs and welcome non-majors. (I can’t remember if they have minors, or double majors, or what. I think Emory only does majors, but they stressed that it was easy to double.) </p>
<p>Another school that was strongly recommended, but that we eliminated due to finances was Swarthmore. They apparently have a marvelous music dept, and lessons available in Philadelphia from high caliber musicians.</p>
<p>If you tell us what your D’s major will be, and what other things might be important, the folks here would probably give you more useful responses.</p>
<p>A bit more info on her preferences would help. Possible major? LAC or university? Big or small? Urban or rural? The typical questions, but they help in pointing out a few directions.</p>
<p>You guys are wonderful responding so quickly.</p>
<p>D’s intended major is biology, which is extremely broad since most schools offer that. A research university will probably be her best bet. She is looking for a city or suburban location, rural is out of the question for her. Her dream is to go somewhere warm, the thought of Chicago or a cold city like it is unthinkable. She does know that she might have to settle for a climate similar to ours in NJ. She is very studious and does not want to go to a “party school” or one that has a large Greek life since that tends to indicate too much partying.</p>
<p>For the West Coast:
She should check out Pomona College. Participants in the ensembles, if they have any sort of financial aid, can have free music lessons and do not need to be music majors. And there are no requirements for ensemble participation to be a music major. I have no idea about the caliber of the flute teacher - but as it’s Southern California there is a wealth of musicians to draw from. It’s not a research university but is very strong in biology. She would certainly like the weather…</p>
<p>I also know a violinist at Occidental who has been having a wonderful experience, and has gotten actual paid work playing in things like the back-up orchestration for rock concerts. She is not a music major but has been able to participate in everything. Not sure about the strength of the sciences there, however, although another friend who is a physicist studied there (a number of years ago) for undergrad and ended up in Cambridge doing his post-doc with Stephen Hawking.</p>
<p>Violadad - Funny you should mention Rice. That was her Numero Uno when we first started our college search. One major problem however - if you are not a music major you cannot take any classes at Sheppard School of Music. Also, all private lessons for non-majors are given only by grad students. So sadly, we ruled out Rice. If you know any differently, please let us know.</p>
<p>I would second Pomona and also suggest taking a look at Cal Tech. Though there is no music minor (or major), there is a vibrant music scene among students and faculty.</p>
<p>Here are two to consider-
Case Western Reserve University- they have a loose affiliation with CIM, but there is a music department with Case itself and they DO have a music minor. There are many ensembles available to Case students also.</p>
<p>NJ Mom of two, this may seem like a dumb thing to say, (as in: duh, of COURSE we’re going to do this) but in the case of a music minor ESPECIALLY, the Common App Arts Supplement is your best friend. When your daughter applies to her schools, assuming they accept the Common App, she has the opportunity to tell a LOT more about herself via the Arts Supplement. The supplement is intended to offer an opportunity for those students who have spend a good deal of their free time in these areas to show their stuff. It is an incredible opportunity to say “I am a flautist, I have been pretty successful at it and, even though I may not major in music, I have this groovy opportunity to contribute to your musical community this way.” It is NOT any kind of obligation to play in college. I am a HUGE fan of the Arts supplement, because you can send a music resume, music teacher recommendations and a CD of your work, and all of these are INVITED within the framework of the application. It can really help distinguish your application, and is an opportunity not to be missed!</p>
<p>I really do advocate calling the music departments. There are some schools that do NOT review any arts supplements that are sent. Also, by just sending the arts supplement, the OPs kiddo will not know whether or not they can do a music minor, play their instrument in ensembles, or take private lessons. The heads of the music departments will have that information. And really, we found them to be most friendly and helpful (even when the answer was NO, they were mighty nice about it).</p>
<p>NJ Mom of 2, that’s why I said “potentially” for Rice. I thought Rice had some classes/ensembles for non majors that weren’t necessarily through Shepherd but it was assumption (or confusion) on my part.</p>
<p>I looked through both sites fairly thoroughly after your post. Unless I missed something it would appear that “there ain’t nuttin there”.</p>
<p>There are 9 performance groups mentioned here, but that’s all I could find.</p>
<p>Violadad - dats all there is for Rice! That is the one music department we have contacted so far and more than once at that, hoping that the answer would change!!</p>
<p>I would never consider that sending the Common App arts supplement to be a waste. Obviously, you’ll research schools and see if they have a music minor prior to applying. If a school uses the common app, they use the arts supplement. As I said earlier, it is always an opportunity to tell more about yourself–and the key is–WHETHER YOU INTEND TO PURSUE THAT ART OR NOT IN COLLEGE. It shows that you might be a different kind of community member. Sometimes colleges will send the supplemental material to the music/arts programs to review and make recommendations, and sometimes they won’t. It NEVER hurts to take a sanctioned opportunity to tell more about yourself. From personal experience, and from helping students with college applications, using the arts supplement, where appropriate, has made an enormous difference.</p>
</p>