<p>This question is a hard one to answer, because the admissions process is such a minefield these days, there are all kind of claims of the magic formula and such. </p>
<p>My first question is when you say you plan on studying music, do you plan on majoring in an academic subject (neuroscience or whatever), and plan on pursuing the cello as a non major, taking lessons, etc? Or do you plan on dual majoring, where you do a performance degree in cello? This is critical, because what you plan on doing is going to affect how you go about things. Among other things, not all the schools you mention offer performance degrees. I am going to try and summarize the options:</p>
<p>1)You go to a school and study an academic major, but do music on the side. Most schools will support this in one way or the other, for example Columbia (which like the other Ivies does not offer an undergraduate music performance degree), has a program where you can take lessons at Juilliard (not the exchange program, I think it is more simple them that; the exchange program is a lot more complicated, you audition for it and it is more closer to a joint program). Other schools may actually pay for private lessons outside the school, all depends on the school.</p>
<p>2)You could go to a school and dual major, do a BS/BA in an academic field, and get a performance degree from the music school within the university. This is a tougher path, because you have to get admitted to both schools, and if you get into the music school but not the university you don’t get in, period; if you get into the university and not the music school , you can go to the university but not get a BM degree (but could potentially do music as a non major). </p>
<p>Dual majors like that usually are difficult, for any number of reasons, conflicts between music classes/ensembles and academic classes, the time needed to practice the instrument and classes/homework on the other side…it generally will be a 5 year thing if you do this, some do it in 4, but it is more like 5 (Bard college conservatory requires its students to dual major,and it is a 5 year program)</p>
<p>The thing to keep in mind is that the performance degree will be auditioned, and to get in there it basically comes down to an audition, a 10 minute or so chance to show how you play. SAT’s, APs, GPA mean little to nothing there (obviously, on the academic university side, it will count for everything. )</p>
<p>With music as an EC there is strong evidence that it can influence academic admissions, I am extremely certain that with the ivies coming in as an accomplished music student weighs pretty heavily, while they don’t have performance degrees, they have orchestras and such they put an emphasis on it. The thing there is, it depends on whether they see the kid as being serious IMO, a kid who has done a major pre college prep program like Juilliard or CIM or such, will be taken a bit more seriously then a kid who played in the school orchestra,took lessons in school and didn’t do much. Competitions might add to the ‘serious’ nature or a sign of passion, but a lot of serious music students don’t do them, either…If you plan on using your cello playing as an EC, you would need to show the passion. The reason for this is a lot of serious music students, especially on an uber competitive instrument like the cello, have to spend a lot of time on their music, they will practice x hours a day (up to 4, 5 hours for a string player), they are doing ensembles and youth orchestras, and that basically consumes a lot of their life, and schools know that…whereas if someone is simply taking lessons on an instrument, doing the school orchestra, and doesn’t do other EC’s, IMO they may look at it as someone who lacked EC’s to be considered (personally, I find the whole EC thing to be a crock of rotten banana oil, but that is for another thread).
In other words, they will look at the cello student who has done a program like CIM prep, youth orchestras and such, and say “hmm, that is a serious music student, who wouldn’t have much time for other EC’s”, if they see a kid who simply says they played the cello, maybe did school orchestra, it would be “hmm, okay, kid played the cello, yeah, school orchestra…hmm, didn’t do anything else, sounds like a kid not interested in much”)</p>
<p>It would be up to you in your application to mention that “on a typical day, I practice x hours a day, plus I do X,Y and Z”. Note if you are applying as a dual major, where you are applying to the music school to audition, the academic admissions people will note that, which I suspect will give more weight to you being a ‘serious music student’ (big difference between Sally who applies to get into the academic school, and says" I play cello", to Bob who is applying to the music school as well). </p>
<p>Cello is extremely competitive, it is near the apex on the competition scale for music school admissions, along with violin, piano and to a certain extent flute. no instrument is easy, but those are particularly bad because they are solo instruments that attract a lot of applicants, and again remember, for music performance (if that is what you want), it is all about the audition, for music school grades, SATs, etc, mean very little in terms of admissions (they could with academic scholarships, however). You face an uphill climb because you have been playing only since 10 or so, and have only been serious the last couple of years, so it may be tough in the next year and a half to pull together the audition rep and get it into audition shape, and with that and the demands of I assume a tough academic load, might make it more difficult. </p>
<p>Keep your options open. For example, some kids do a gap year after senior year if they don’t get into a program they want to, and use that year to bring their playing up to snuff. You could theoretically get an academic admit to a program with a music school, get into the academic side, spend time working with a teacher at the school or elsewhere, then audition at end of first year (this may or may not be doable, depending on the program they may not allow it, I am not sure). You could do the BA music, BA/BS in something else, then maybe go for an MM…or do a BA/BS in an academic field, and study music privately, then maybe do an MM…</p>
<p>One of the biggest things you need to do is to look at the schools you are thinking of. For example, as I mentioned, Columbia does not offer a BM, they do offer a program where students can take lessons with teachers at Juilliard (I believe ivies in general often offer similar things to students who are interested, in house or external), Columbia does have a kind of exchange/joint program with Juilliard, but the exchange program is difficult to get into, and the so called Joint program, where you get your bachelors at Columbia and then get your MM at Juilliard, is even more difficult, literally handful of students. </p>
<p>Other schools, like UCLA, do have schools of music that offer a BM, so there you could do a joint degree, assuming you got in both schools there.</p>
<p>Make a list of the schools you are thinking of, and look at their websites, you can see clearly if they offer a performance degree, if in music they offer an academic BA in music but not on instruments (theory, music history, poss composition, etc), what the requirements are for audition and so forth. Your decisions might well be predicated in terms of where you apply on what they actually offer. It is a common misconception that if a school offers a BA in music it means they have a ‘school of music’, but that is not true, and performance degrees are totally different beasts then academic ones in terms of admissions. </p>
Yeah, Tufts is also on my list…just looking at colleges with good music and science programs right now. Yes, I do have a private teacher who I have studied w/ for about 4 years now (1st year of cello I didn’t do much haha) and I did not know summer music camps exist. I guess I’ll apply next year then. </p>
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