<p>Hi,</p>
<p>Does anyone know how selective the Northwestern Bienen School of Music is? Does anyone know the selectivity percentage? Also, does anyone know how selective the jazz division is?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>It has a very strong reputation, possibly the top program in Illinois. It's probably about as selective as any top 5 conservatory, save Curtis and Juilliard.</p>
<p>I would guess that for jazz it is not as selective as most other programs like NEC, Oberlin, New School etc. because they recently shut down their whole program for a year and then restarted it again last year. They also don't have a prescreening requirement unlike most other jazz programs which probably means that it isn't as selective. I emailed them the same question and they said that they wouldn't finalize their numbers for how many they would take this year until February but they did say that their freshman class (which is the whole program) only has 12 students with only one bass player and one guitar player(they didn't specify the numbers for any other instruments). The faculty that they hired this year is amazing and I doubt you would find faculty of this quality at places that are much more selective. I'm sure in coming years it will become just as selective as any of the schools I mentioned above.</p>