Hello! I’m a senior in high school applying to schools like Eastman, Rice, Northwestern, and Indiana!
My Stats:
ACT- 30
GPA- 94% (I’m not sure about the 4 point system, my school does percentages!)
AP courses- AP Comp Sci 3, AP Environmental 4, AP Composition and Literature 4, AP Us History 3
I was wondering how much grades factor into the admissions process for schools such as Rice and Northwestern. I am only applying to their respective music schools, and I’ve heard mixed things! Are those schools heavily audition based like conservatories? Or is the importance of grades and auditions split 50/50? Please let me know, and it would help a lot if you could share personal experiences or link me to other discussions with similar questions 
Hi there- my D applied to all of those except Indiana. What I would say is that in all music schools, whether at an academically challenging university setting or not, the audition carries a lot of weight. That said, academic standards do come into play, as they don’t want to admit students who will flounder academically. Moreso if you apply to dual degree programs, obviously.
Specifically, I believe we were told at Rice that Shepard doesn’t have final admission authority, they make recommendations to the Rice admissions office as to who they want. I imagine barring a significant academic deficit those recommendations mostly get through. At Northwestern and UR/ Eastman, you apply separately to the music school and/or the liberal arts, engineering, whatever schools. Bienen and Eastman do their own admissions, UR and the other schools at NU consider those applications separately, so you get independent decisions from each.
For sure Bienen and Eastman look at academics, but their standards for GPA/ test scores are a bit more lenient than for an applicant at the other parts of the university.
Hope that helps!
Although I cannot offer any advice or information on the question presented in this thread, I do know that all four schools are outstanding for the study of music.
I am posting as a bump to encourage more responses from knowledgeable posters.
Rice has a reputation for having very high academic standards for its music school applicants. Have you taken subject SATs? I believe Rice won’t consider you if you haven’t, but maybe the ACT covers both SAT and Subject.
My daughter is a junior, so she has another year, but she just took subject tests pretty much on the chance that she decides to apply to Rice. (Up to now she’s been leaning more toward conservatory.) Her friends who have gone there have all been playing at a very high level, quite comparable to her friends who are at top conservatories.
Google the name of the school and “admissions statistics” for a quick picture of how your test scores stack up.
Rice’s 25th percentile to 75th percentile score range on the ACT is 32-35.
At Indiana, the average ACT score is a 27, and the 75th percentile is a 30.
But Indiana’s music school is exceptional.
We were considering Rice too but when we toured the school, we didn’t get any info about its music school other than you need to apply both places (Rice and Sheppards) separately and be accepted at both to go to Sheppards. We were also told by someone on CC that double major at rice (music and sth else) is not really feasible, do you know whether that is the case @noviceatoller ?
At most of the upper level music programs, support for dual majoring is pretty low and varies from instructor to instructor. There is also some natural variation by instrument. A lot of the most seasoned posters on this board are parents of string players. Dual majoring on a string instrument is more or less unheard of because practicing 6-8 hours is the norm. For vocalists, brass player and most woodwinds, that kind of practice time is not typically advised, so dual majoring may be slightly more feasible.
Another thing that factors in is that Rice’s general education requirements are a little tougher than a lot of music schools. For example, Peabody (part of Hopkins, though it functions pretty separately) and Rice require the same number of academic credits (30). At Peabody, that includes a lot of humanities electives (which could be dovetailed toward a second major). Shepherd students take three 3-credit courses in each of three core areas, one of which is science/engineering. My best guess is that those would be tough classes that would take a lot out of you, so adding a heavier course load to make a dual major could get pretty dicey.
Northwestern said specifically at tour they need students who can hack the academic rigor and that the academic profile of their music students was not dissimilar to the rest of their student body FWIW. I’d make sure you have some academic safeties on your list where an ACT 30 would be at the 75% or higher.
@makemesmart , when we toured Rice we took separate tours of the music school and the general university. One of the reasons S18 decided not to apply to Rice was it did not seem the music school was well integrated with the university. The Shepherd admissions counselor even made a point of telling us one could take most of the Rice general education requirements at Shepherd. S18 wanted more of a typical undergraduate experience, as opposed to a conservatory experience. So Rice may work great for others, but for S18 it looked like a better graduate school option.
@vistajay Thanks for sharing this about Rice. Very helpful information
@vistajay added the comment about the music school at Rice not being integrated with the University… We found that general thing to be true both at the public university music program my daughter attended for undergrad as well as at Rice for graduate school. The nature of the classes and the fact that they are so specific to the music majors (in daughter’s case, vocal performance), naturally leads the students to “hang out” with those they are meeting in class. The good thing about undergrad though is that you will also take some gen ed courses as well, so you do get a chance to meet other people. I think too, if you get involved with other “non music” groups on campus, you will hopefully meet some people outside of your major.
Regarding Rice and grades for undergrad, since my daughter did her masters there, we did not experience it, but she had said before that it is a lot easier GRADE wise to get into Rice for Grad school, than it is for undergrad because the GPA and other requirements for undergrad are so super high. The GPA requirements for grad school for Shepard school are lower in number, but still pretty solid, but the competition is incredibly fierce for the grad level audition.
Good luck whichever way you decide to go!