<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>I'm a senior looking to major in piano performance-- I've been finalizing my list of colleges/conservatories to apply to, and I was wondering whether anyone here knows anything about Northwestern's piano program. </p>
<p>Also, in general, how competitive are the auditions? I have a lot of prospective-music-major friends but I haven't heard Northwestern mentioned too often in the names that are tossed around :). I do know that's it's a really good liberal arts university, which is the reason I'm thinking of applying there (2290 SAT, thinking of double major, maybe). </p>
<p>Oh, and another thing-- how much do they usually give music majors in financial aid? Will it help me aid-wise if I also apply for the liberal arts program?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>I’m a music student at NU, and while I can’t say how Northwestern’s piano studios stack up relative to other schools, every pianist I’ve met here has been pretty awesome. The professors are pretty good, and most of the students are top-notch players. The studio (and the school in general) also has a level of prestige to pull some pretty big guest artists (piano-wise): Christopher O’Riley was here a couple years ago and Yefim Bronfman was supposed to come but pulled out due to illness.</p>
<p>As far as second majors go, I’m a double degree student (BM and BA in Poli Sci), and I applied to schools knowing that I wanted to double. NU made (and continues to make) it the easiest to do “something else” out of all the schools I looked at.</p>
<p>As far as financial aid goes, NU is fairly unique in that they meet 100% of your financial need, but merit scholarships can’t exceed that need. Essentially, they take the cost of attendance, subtract your EFC from it, and give you a financial aid package made up of grants, scholarships, and loans equal to the amount left over. You would get the same amount of financial aid whether you were a general student, a student in the school of music, or doing both. That said, audition-based merit scholarships can take the place of your loans in your package, but if your package has no loans in it and you get a merit music scholarship, NU financial aid will decrease your generic Northwestern scholarship by an equal amount so the overall level of aid remains the same.</p>
<p>If I were you, I would email one of the professors (here’s the program’s website: [Piano: </a>; Bienen School of Music - Northwestern University](<a href="http://www.music.northwestern.edu/academics/areas-of-study/piano.html]Piano: ">Piano | Northwestern Bienen School of Music)) and ask if they could put you in touch with one of the piano students. They’d be able to answer your piano-specific questions with more detail, and a fair number of them are double-degree students as well (I know of at least 3), so they’d be able to talk to you about that as well.</p>
<p>I don’t go to Northwestern but I had a lesson with one of the professors and sent in a prescreen there but didn’t get in. Based on my lesson, I’d say the professors are top-notch (but then again, having had lessons at a lot of music schools, I tend to think that there are top-notch piano professors even at lesser name schools). The campus is great and I really wish I had gotten in there. By comparison, I got into CCM, which is also extremely competitive, so you can conclude that it’s gonna take your best work to put your foot in the door with Northwestern admissions. Definitely go for this school, though.</p>
<p>PianoMan, were you admitted to CCM for Piano Performance? I ask since that is what Cerabellum is pursuing, for comparison. We know a couple families preparing for this process as well.</p>