<p>Could anyone here try to rate somehow some of the music programs by their quality and difficulty of getting in? For example, my D is very certain she is going to visit, and maybe apply to Peabody, Oberlin, CMU, UMich (Schhol of Music) but very uncertain about Eastman, saying that she feels it's super-reach for her. But neither she, not I have any idea about comparative quality/competitiveness of Eastman and, say, Oberlin, Peabody, CMU, UMich School of Music, USC (Thornton) and some of the UC's music programs (audition-based ones), etc. - for example, for piano/violin/theory/mus. ed. students. Is such an information available anywhere?</p>
<p>Quality ratings are necessarily very subjective and vary quite a bit from instrument to instrument and from year to year, as teachers move around and budgets and administrations change. However, if your daughter has a legitimate shot at the other schools you mention, I don't think she should rule out Eastman a priori. She would probably see many of the same people auditioning both there and at some of the other eastern schools on your list.</p>
<p>Peabody has a higher overall admit rate than most of the schools that you mention, around 50% or maybe a little higher these days. In their defense, their marketing seems to be more narrowly targeted than most thus generating fewer applications from students who would have little chance of being accepted. Many of the others generally have overall acceptance rates in the 25% to 33% range (flutes, sopranos and music theatre students always excepted). Schools like Curtis and Juilliard as well as a few highly-sought-after teachers here and there typically have acceptance rates in the single digits but the outlook improves markedly once you get beyond such special cases.</p>
<p>Michigan, Oberlin and especially CMU are going to be more interested in her academic record than some of the others. I suspect USC would also fall into this category, but I do not know the west coast schools all that well. Her GPA and test scores could change the odds either for or against her at these schools.</p>
<p>"Peabody has a higher overall admit rate than most of the schools that you mention, around 50% or maybe a little higher these days.In their defense, their marketing seems to be more narrowly targeted than most thus generating fewer applications from students who would have little chance of being accepted".</p>
<p>How (and why :-)) they do it?</p>
<p>Peabody also counts differently from other schools, at least according to their website. They count only students who actually complete auditions, not just those who at some point file applications but never complete the process, which (Peabody suggests) some schools do to give an appearance of great selectivity. I'm not sure that's actually true.
Additionally, it's worth keeping in mind that Juilliard, like Harvard, gets a lot of applications-for-giggles from people who have no chance whatsoever of admission. Of course, it's extremely selective, I'm not suggesting otherwise, but the admission rate would look different if you narrowed the field to people who might actually be in competition for slots before starting to count.</p>
<p>The devil is indeed in the details and you have to take these numbers with more than a grain of salt. ("What are music admissions statistics? Mixed metaphors for $400 please, Alex.")</p>
<p>Inconsistent methodology is yet another reason why it is hard to place quantitative measurements on artistic endeavors. When all is said and done, you want to look for a teacher who has a track record for producing whatever it is that you want to be. You want to look for an environment that will support your efforts in that direction rather than hinder them. You want to look for other students who are at and above your level, and you want to look for a place that just might show you some options you never knew existed. The rest is just scribbling.</p>
<p>Myau, your request makes perfect sense, but like other posters, we had little success in trying to gain knowledge about overall acceptance rates. The IPEDS webpage, <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/%5B/url%5D">http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/</a>, lists official acceptance and yield rates, but is only available for independent conservatories. Curtis is not listed, Juilliard has a rate of 7%, and MSM, CIM, and NEC are each about 30%. No statistics are available for Eastman, Oberlin, or Peabody because for these conservatories. Only the overall college/university statistics are posted. Even if you could find the stats, it would not be very helpful. Acceptance and yield rates vary greatly for different instruments and for different years. The information would also not be helpful unless you also had some measure of the quality of the applicants.</p>
<p>At the time of admission, we were able to get information on the number of openings and the number of applicants at three conservatories. For MSM, Eastman, and Peabody, admission rates were each about 30% for my D's instrument. This did not match the Peabody claim of 50-65%. I suspect Peabody is trying to advertise a high acceptance rate in order to encourage applications. The worst acceptance rate was at BU, which my D included as a safety. There were at least 20 auditioners. Later, we heard there was only one studio opening which went to a BU pre-college student.</p>
<p>I think the acceptance rates are not all that meaningful anyway.</p>
<p>My DS had a practice lesson on Friday, which went very well, with the teacher being exceptionally complimentary. Son was also told that year to year, admittance rates completely depend on a) the number of openings (some years 1-2, some years, perhaps 5) and the quality of the other auditioners (which varies as well).</p>
<p>So, even incredibly talented kids could be denied admission one year, while someone not quite so talented gets in the next.</p>
<p>This is why actual "yield" is pretty meaningless at these top conservatories, I guess. Makes planning a bit dicey.</p>
<p>There is no such thing as a "safety" in music performance. The reality is that so much banks on your audition that if it is poor, you won't get accepted no matter what the quality of the program is.</p>
<p>For what they are worth, separate stats for Oberlin college and conservatory are available, just hard to find. <a href="http://peacock.adm.oberlin.edu/www/sche25/%5B/url%5D">http://peacock.adm.oberlin.edu/www/sche25/</a></p>
<p>They are pretty much in line with the numbers edad quoted for NEC, CIM and MSM. I agree that they are not all that useful for the very reasons he and others have cited.</p>
<p>The admissions officer at Curtis told me a few years back that they are generally in the 5% to 7% range, but I have no citation to back that up.</p>
<p>thumper, I'm not sure that's quite true. If you're auditioning at a school where the general level is considerably lower than your own, a bad audition won't keep you out so long as your overall level of playing is evident. It would be likelier to prevent you from getting scholarship money.</p>
<p>Does anyone else find it wry that in this thread Peabody is both</p>
<p>A) suspected of inflating their acceptance rate to attract more applicants, and</p>
<p>B) seen as suggesting that other schools deflate acceptance rate to appear more selective (one presumes for the purpose of attracting more applicants)?</p>
<p>Maybe the schools themselves don't know what to do with these statistics.</p>
<p>I can't see how either "acceptance" or "yield" rates can be very meaningful unless tied to the particular studio. Schools like Curtis that had no oboe openings last year, for example, would not even be a "reach" for an oboist, since there was just no possibility at all!<br>
Myau, you will also need to work out a manageable list of auditions. Another current CC music major thread discusses the exhaustion factor and certainly if your D were to audition for all the schools you mention, you would both be pretty wiped out.
Visiting the schools, taking a lesson with the teacher and inquiring about the number of openings in the studio will give you some idea of whether she should apply and audition.</p>
<p>Actually, I am not sure either A or B is true. I don't remember seeing any comments on the Peabody webpages about acceptance rates at other conservatories. I do remember the claim of 50-65% acceptance, but I took a quick look and could not find any current acceptance rate claims. Maybe I just missed the correct page. I suspect Peabody acceptance rates have been declining. I understand the campus was very unattractive several years ago before the major renovations.</p>
<p>I have no idea whether either is true myself, I just found it humorous that we had two posts in such short order that seemed to suggest manipulating a particular statistic upward had the same effect as manipulating it downward. That either goes to show that Peabody has found a minimum on the graph of number of applicants vs. acceptance rate, or that it is hard to get a grip on what is really going on based on that particular statistic. Personally, I suspect the latter.</p>
<p>The acceptance rate numbers for Peabody can be found off of the page <a href="http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/140%5B/url%5D">http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/140</a> by clicking on the various departments on the left-hand menu. For flute it is "under twenty percent," for music ed it is "slightly over fifty percent," for orchestra instruments (other than flute) it is "about 70%," for piano as well as recording arts it is "about fifty percent," and the voice page says that the acceptance rate is "over 60%" for males and "usually below 30%" for females due to the imbalance in numbers of applications between the sexes. Peabody's is the only website where I have found such information discussed this openly.</p>
<p>This is all highly subjective, especially when you consider the adage: One person's safety is another person's reach.</p>
<p>Bottom line, which has been stated above, as well as in multiple other threads, it's the student's private teacher(s) that can best access the appropriate fit. Besides the "normal" private teacher, we also made sure that we asked summer program teachers who were on college faculties for their opinions too. We used these data in our initial search and then visited schools on "the list" and asked the profs at the schools for their opinions. </p>
<p>Quite honestly, HS band/orchestra directors, unless they play the same instrument as your child and are well-networked with college faculity members for said instrument, aren't the best for saying "where," although their input and advice is important. It really comes down the the private teachers.</p>
<p>The system outlined above worked pretty well for us in that DD went 4 for 5 on acceptances, with the only rejection from one of the 3 "reach" schools.</p>
<p>When in doubt, apply, BUT keep an eye on how many auditions you do, as too many could be just as bad as too few. At the Peabody parent's session during auditions, the Director of Admissions said it best. He asked a show of hands of people who's children were auditioning at more than 6 schools. When more than a smattering of hands went up he said "Don't you people have jobs???"</p>
<p>Getting back to one of the themes mentioned by the OP, we approached "safeties" by looking for schools where the only teacher on her instrument was a student of one of the people that daughter really wanted to study with. (I put "safeties" in quotes because I know that it is always possible to screw up an audition.) The reasoning was that she could do the basics like first year theory, music history, basic piano skills and freshman English almost anywhere while working up audition pieces for a possible transfer application the next year.</p>
<p>We further narrowed the list by choosing a couple of schools where she would likely be one of the better players, even as a freshman, and would also likely qualify for some merit money. Then we scheduled auditions at those places on the late side, after the results of at least one or two of the earlier auditions would be in. As it turned out, she had an excellent offer in December and withdrew the safety applications (as well as a couple of others) a couple of weeks before they were even due. That helped us keep the number of auditions down to a not-too-unreasonable five in person and one on videotape.</p>
<p>Good ideas (as usual) Bass Dad. At our house, the reach, match, safety situation will be all about the Benjamins (or cost of attendance). Hopefully auditions will go well, but who we will have to see what can be afforded after any merit or need based aid comes in.</p>
<p>I did call and speak with admissions at the Conservatory at Oberlin and they are not concerned with GPA, only with your audition. College of Fine Arts does look at GPA and is certainly highly selective.</p>
<p>Interesting - that does not agree with what they told me a couple of years back. At that time they were saying that they look for students who they think will be capable of keeping up in the electives that they are required to take in the college. (Not that there aren't a few relatively easy classes for those so inclined.) They also realize that it is pretty easy to transfer into the double degree program from the conservatory side so, at least in former years, they said that they did consider the student's high school record and test scores. The audition has always carried the most weight, however.</p>
<p>If you look at the stats at <a href="http://peacock.adm.oberlin.edu/www/sche25/%5B/url%5D">http://peacock.adm.oberlin.edu/www/sche25/</a> you will see that the average SAT score for those entering the conservatory last year was over 1300 (out of 1600) and the trend has generally been upward over the last several years. While unspectacular by CC standards, that is still well above average and only about 50 points behind their Oberlin College colleagues. Part of that is because nearly 30% of the conservatory students are in the double degree program and hence are counted in both sets of figures. Even so, we are probably looking at mid-to-high 1200's as an average for those who are in the conservatory only.</p>
<p>In terms of acceptance percentages, the college has been around 40% lately while the conservatory hovers around 30%. In that limited sense, the conservatory is actually more selective than the college.</p>
<p>DS took a private lesson from the tuba prof. at Oberlin a few weeks back. He also teaches at Cleveland I of M. He told DS that for this year, he had 3 spots at each school and was auditioning 10 at one school and only 5 at another. Can't remember which numbers went with which schools. DS is a junior and now has a heightened awareness of what he is going to have to pull off for an audition in order to get in. The prof. did go so far as to tell DS that his ability level was certainly consistent with applicants he had auditioned for this year. Is there already a thread titled "How to not blow your audition." Or wait...there will have to be some blowing since he's playing a tuba...</p>