<p>Does anybody know if the academic admission requirements to Rice are as rigorous for Music Majors as the rest of the University ?</p>
<p>They are tough but not quite as bad as the rest of Rice. You should look at the midpoints of the last class and if you are way below that there may be a problem, but being around midpoint should be OK. The audition is extremely important but you also have to have the academic acceptance: Good SATs or ACTs, rigorous HS academic work, good essay and recs. .</p>
<p>You must meet the university's standards. Whatever that means.</p>
<p>I was accepted to the shepherd school/rice for this fall on tuba at the undergraduate level.
I have to say that any slack they cut you academically is taken up musically - the music school is highly selective.
From an academic standard, I scored very high on my SATs and SAT II subject tests, but made about a B average in high school (although in primarily AP classes) with a few exceptions (I made some pretty awful grades in a regular level chemistry class for example). My essay was very strong, and I know its weighted pretty heavily in the final decision, so make sure you have a really creative viewpoint, are enthusiastic about the school, and show that Rice and you can have a mutually beneficial relationship.
Rice can be forgiving, just make sure you make up for any faults/flaws in other areas.</p>
<p>Sarah, if you don't mind me appearing to nosey, would you share with me (PM) your SAT scores and class rank ?</p>
<p>Thanks,</p>
<p>I don't really see what the point of that is. There's no magical formula or minimum score for getting in to Rice. I think you have a pretty good idea that Rice is relatively difficult to get in to, and seeing Sarah's scores and class rank isn't going to do anything to supplement that perspective.</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure you only need to seem intelligent (enough to make it through some academic courses at Rice), but musical talent far outweighs that. They probably just go with the best auditioner and only decide otherwise if they have a really low GPA (in the Cs) or really low SAT (below 1800 or so).</p>
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I'm pretty sure you only need to seem intelligent (enough to make it through some academic courses at Rice), but musical talent far outweighs that.
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<p>Not so true. You really need to 1) be able to be admitted to Rice like any other student, and 2) make the cut musically. I lived with a musi for all four years at Rice, married another Rice musi after college. My roommate was both a violin performance major and was valedictorian of her high school. My husband started out as a physics/music composition double-major. You really need to be able to do both, and though the standards may be slightly relaxed for musicians, I never really saw any evidence of that in my dealings with Shepherd students.</p>
<p>Well, I don't know for certain, but I have been told that for certain instruments at Shepherd (the ones where the prof is one of the very best in that field) there is almost no attention paid to anything outside of the audition, but maybe for the majority of parts there is more of a balance?</p>
<p>This from Richard Lavenda, by way of my now-ticked former Shepherd Student ('03 grad) husband (he'll get over it): They definitely don't lower the standards. They used to have somewhat lowered standards for the musicians many years ago, but they discovered that they got far <em>better</em> musicians from upping the academic standards for enrollment. They also made the change because there are a fair number of students who transfer out of Shepherd... if they didn't accept people who could hack it at Rice, then these folks transferring out would have to leave the university to pursue another field.</p>
<p>Well that certainly narrows the viable applicant pool. I wonder how many music performance majors are scoring 1350-1400 on SATs.</p>
<p>My D is a Shepherd grad and she more than met the academic standards for Rice (well above 1400 SAT). She said the musis who were weaker students really struggled. There are a number of courses that performance majors take outside of Shepherd, and you have to hold your own against the rest of the Rice students.</p>
<p>DD was at or slightly below that for SATs. She struggles some but not a lot on classes but does find a lot of friends to help her out Not Dean's list or honors yet but holding her own above a 3.0 aiming to be higher. And even if the applicant pool is narrowed, it is amazing. The orchestra and voice students are superb. I have been amazed at the concerts.</p>
<p>Hi, I'm looking at Rice for next year and I'm applying for flute. In the grossly obese chance that I do get accepted into both Rice and Shephard, how hard is it to major in say, Cognitive Science (or neuroscience) and flute performance? (AKA do people do it and do it successfully?)</p>
<p>I know a fair number of people who double in performance and some type of social science. It's doable, but it's definitely not easy. It also requires a lot of going back and forth from Shepherd to your other classes, most of which will probably be in Sewell.</p>
<p>Thanks! Can non performance majors get lesssons? (since it's ridiculously difficult to get into Rice's AMAZING flute studio, it'd be nice if it was available...) :D I know I could look it up, but I'm a lazy bum. Sorry guys, heh</p>
<p>Yes, you can get lessons from graduate students in various instruments. I did a semester of piano lessons, which was rather rewarding, but I was forced to give it up due to a demanding schedule.</p>
<p>You can sign up for weekly lessons with a graduate student for a charge of several hundred dollars per semester.</p>
<p>The graduate students don't actually see that money, by the way. It officially goes toward their scholarships, which would be maintained regardless of whether they have students or not. You might be able to negotiate a better deal with the students directly, particularly if you don't want college credit for the lessons and perhaps don't intend to take regularly scheduled lessons.</p>
<p>Depending on the professor, you might also be able to get one or two lessons from them directly. This would not be for credit, and most teachers are too busy to see non-Shepherd students at all. I've never heard of Buyse taking non major students before, but I suppose it'd be worth asking her about if you ever got to that point.</p>
<p>I'm going to the NFA convention this August to compete in the HS soloist finals..and since both my teachers are former students of Buyse, I plan to talk to her there. Buyse is absolutely INCREDIBLE. I think I'll end up auditioning for Shephered and see what happens after that...I'll need a LOT of luck though. ;D</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>