<p>I'm applying to colleges with great music schools like Rochester and Northwestern. My plan is to premed in college but would it be worth it to double major in music? I play a wind instrument in regional orchestras but I'm not great compared to other people. I would continue taking lessons and performing in orchestras but would it be worth the stress and extra work to get a BM? What does sort of practical value would a BM have for a someone who doesn't career in music?</p>
<p>niteangel, some of the wording in your post suggests you may not necessarily be aware of the rigors, competition, and requirements of an audition driven admit process, the various policies dictating the availability of opportunities and lessons for BM candidates versus non-majors at conservatory level programs such as Bienen and Eastman, as well as the time and scheduling conflicts in trying to combine a performance and science based discipline.</p>
<p>Some past threads and additional info links within these:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/747401-major-music-performance-w-pre-med-requirements.html?highlight=pre+med[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/747401-major-music-performance-w-pre-med-requirements.html?highlight=pre+med</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/515057-music-major-music-career-vs-pre-med-med-school.html?highlight=pre+med[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/515057-music-major-music-career-vs-pre-med-med-school.html?highlight=pre+med</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/72531-schools-have-strong-music-science-programs.html?highlight=music+and[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/72531-schools-have-strong-music-science-programs.html?highlight=music+and</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/232450-double-major-music-biology.html?highlight=music+and[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/232450-double-major-music-biology.html?highlight=music+and</a></p>
<p>LOL thats why I’m asking. Thanks for the helpful links.</p>
<p>You have been given some really good reading- look it over and then consider what you really want. If you are considering pre-med at the U of R, I can’t see any possible way that you could double-major with Eastman, even if you were able to get past the audition. My advice would be, if you truly don’t intend to go for a career in music, to find a good pre-med program and after a semester or two at school,see if you have time to join the college orchestra or one in the town or community. You don’t want to bite off more than you can chew. Good luck to you!</p>
<p>I think you have answered your own question. You have noted that you are not “great”, and that you don’t want a career in music. My advice, like MM’s, is to go to a university and play in the orchestra. You don’t need a BM, and it would probably be impossible, or certainly very difficult, at the schools you have described, unless you are at the top of the heap musically.</p>
<p>James Madison University in VA has a pre-med prep program, and a number of the Large Ensembles are open to all JMU students either by or without an audition.</p>
<p>[JMU</a> School of Music :: Large Ensembles](<a href=“http://www.jmu.edu/music/ensembles/large_ensemble.html]JMU”>http://www.jmu.edu/music/ensembles/large_ensemble.html)</p>
<p>I am not sure how easy it would be to get private lessons on an instrument as a non-major. I know it is difficult to impossible for singers. Not sure about instrumentalists.</p>
<p>I am going to respond from sort of a logic angle, based on what I do know about how hard it is to get into competive music programs for a BM, and from direct knowledge what pre med is like.</p>
<p>While theoretically someone could potentially go pre med in one school and get admitted in a joint program with a music school (such as Eastman/Rochester), I suspect if anyone has done that it is pretty rare. Pre med is not really a major, it is a concentration, that most people going into tend to major in a science like chem or bio (some do it through engineering, and yes people have done it with other majors as well). Pre med besides requiring top grades, also requires a number of semesters of science,bio, chem (usually inorganic and my nemeis, organic, sometimes even biochem), it takes a lot of commitment to get through the program to get into med school. </p>
<p>A BM likewise takes a lot of time and effort, the practice time alone would make it near impossible to manage it all, at least at a top notch music program. You can’t take all those courses for the pre med, that usually have labs, plus all the core requirements, plus the other major requirements, and practice at the level a BM would require, and keep up the grades IMO, you can’t work 24/7. Put it this way, a lot of serious music kids in high school, heading the music conservatory route, find that they can’t maintain a serious practice schedule with high school level work and being in school and homeschool, and it only would be more intense at a college level based on my own experiences (as a failed pre med, hence speaking from experience). Especially as you weren’t particularly serious about music in high school (if I read your post correctly, apologies if I didn’t) you would probably find getting into a top level BM program way, way out of your reach I suspect…the BM in many ways is IMO a lot more difficult then a pre med program, as competitive as med school admissions are and the academic requirements, based on what I have already seen with competition into BM programs at top music schools and conservatories, it is much harder in many ways…</p>
<p>I agree with what someone else said, there are probably a lot of places where you could continue to play music in orchestras and such, have lessons, but as a non major, so you could enjoy music while pursuing your pre med vocation.</p>
<p>I haven’t read the links here, or even all of the threads, but want to mention that our daughter is at a top college, majoring in music, and the music history (full-year) course is reputed to be harder than any pre-med science. Half the class dropped out mid-year because they failed the first half, and many of the others were happy to get C’s.</p>
<p>Majoring in music means some pretty deep study of theory, musicianship, music history, ethnomusicology and so on, so it is not just something to tack onto pre-med studies because you love to play an instrument.</p>
<p>You could apply to conservatories, within or not within larger university settings, and get a BM in performance.</p>
<p>Or you can apply to a college or university BA or BS program, study pre-med or whatever else you want to study, take private lessons in your instrument, and play in the orchestra, band, ensembles and other musical activities.</p>
<p>A third option is a double degree. Oberlin offers this, as does Bard (at Bard, everyone in the conservatory also gets a BA or BS, so the double degree is required for musicians; at Oberlin it is an opportunity, and students move fairly easily between the college and the conservatory if their goals change). Tufts has a dual degree BA and BM with NEC, Harvard has a double BA/MM program with NEC, and there is a program between Columbia and Juilliard. </p>
<p>Many BM degree-holders, who went to conservatory as undergraduates, do go to medical school.</p>
<p>Many BA or BS degree-holders study something other than music, but participate in playing in whatever orchestra or ensemble they want, and end up playing and loving music for the rest of their lives.</p>
<p>Finally, if you went to Eastman School of Music at Rochester, for instance, you would be BM candidate. If you went to University of Rochester, you could probably take music classes and participate in musical activities in the university (but not the conservatory). I don’t know if they offer a dual (BA or BS and BM) or double (BA or BS and MM) degree, but as a pre-med student in the university I don’t think you’d have that much access to conservatory training (someone correct me if I am wrong).</p>
<p>At Rochester, students can take lessons for free at Eastman with a graduate student. However, they will not be able to study with any of the full time teachers without being in the BM program. Very few performance majors at Eastman are successful at cmpleting the double degree. Most of the dd students (and I understand there aren’t that many to begin with) are in musicology.</p>
<p>Hmm… Oberlin and Bard sound interesting. Like I said, I enjoy playing music and I have some talent but I’m not as passionate as some people. I’ve only heard of doctors who have majored in music so I was entertaining the idea of doing it myself.</p>
<p>People who majored in music have later gone on to med school, I know of cases like that, though many of them did so not with a BM from a conservatory, but with a ba in music from a university program, and that can be quite different from what I can tell. Also, people could get a BM degree, then take courses in things like chemistry, bio and the like required of people wishing to go to med school, and then make the shift…the people I know of who did go to med school later were not in conservatory settings and from what they told me were not performance majors (one was in musicology, one was in music ed). </p>
<p>Given that in BM in performance that people routinely spend as much as 6 hours or more on a given day practicing, not to mention chamber group, rehearsals, music theory, ear training and so forth, I suspect that the only way someone could go to med school would be as i just mentioned, take the courses pre req for going to med school after completing the BM degree…</p>
<p>I think the advice to go to a school for pre med where you can take lessons and play in groups as a non major is probably the way to go, least in my view.</p>