<p>The general admission stats are out there, of how many people who applied, how many are admitted, with Juilliard it was under 7% , with NEC it is a lot higher (somewhere around 25%). However, those numbers represent the overall, and it doesn’t do you much good when applying because every instrument is different. For example, that 6% number tells you it is a hard admit, but if you are playing flute and that year there is 1 opening between grad and undergrad, it doesn’t tell you a lot, given that the odds of getting admitted on flute is probably way less than 6%. It also boils down to the studio teachers you pick, if on violin and applying to Juilliard trying to get Jimmy Lin or Perlman is going to be way more difficult than some other teachers (and this is not a knock on the other teachers, it is because a)both of those gentleman are world renowned performers and b)they take very few students). As a result, those two teachers get a lot of applications from all over the world by music students who because they have heard of them want them (plus those driven by prestige, too), so they may have 1 or 2 slots, and have some ridiculous number of kids applying for slots, where a really great teacher might have a lot less applying…</p>
<p>And yes, it does depend on the instrument. Piano and Violin in most programs, but especially the ‘big programs’ (define that as you wish), is uber competitive because they are solo instruments and as such are valued by many as being ‘ultimate’ instruments (and note the quotes, I make no such claims), so the competition level is absurd, whereas for let’s say a brass instrument it is merely insane. Too, it also depends on the level of students applying, from everything I can tell application years tend to have ebb and flow on instruments, kind of like the NFL draft, one year violin is particularly strong and let’s say brass is not so strong, the next year, they see freakishly high caliber kids on brass. </p>
<p>Keep in mind it is hard to judge yields of difficulty because of other factors. For example, you could make an argument that orchestral instruments (not primarily solo instruments), because they don’t have the ‘prestige’ factor, tend to draw less students overall studying them,but on the other hand schools don’t admit much each year, either. You play trumpet, they admit maybe a small handful of students, so even though less kids probably audition on trumpet in a given year than violin, they also admit a lot less, so the yield might not be all that much different. The other thing is that relative levels between instruments makes no sense, because what matters is how well you play against your fellow auditioners. Put it this way, in terms of technical ability, by the time college auditions come around, string players and pianists in terms of playing ability tend to be better technically (and remember this is all relative) than woodwinds or brass players, further advanced. Does that mean brass and woodwind students are worse students, less driven? Nope, it reflects the fact that a)you cannot start those instruments that early, 7 or 8 is pretty early, and older is not uncommon (many school programs only offer limited instruments that young, for example), which reflects the physical, whereas with piano and violin they are getting ready for prenatal lessons (okay, I am exagerrating). Plus, as I know only too well, on brass or woodwinds you cannot practice as many hours, playing violin for 3,4,5 or more hours, or piano, is doable, do that on woodwind or brass you will hurt yourself.
So because of the sheer number of hours, there is likely to be a deficit…but on the other hand, if you are a trumpet player, other players have the same limitations, so comparing it to violin or piano makes little sense. </p>
<p>Looking at yields is tempting in judging how good schools are, but there are holes in that. Firstly, as I pointed out, the overall acceptance rate may or may not have relevance to your situation on your instrument, the flautist auditioning for 1 slot may look at 6% and say “I wish it were that easy”. The other big factor is that the acceptance rate may not reflect badly on schools with higher acceptance rates, and here is why. Take for example NEC or CIM, both really good schools, with good faculty and such, whose acceptance rate is much higher than Juilliard, and think “hmm, Juilliard must be so much better, the students must be better”. What you have to be careful of is that a lot of music students have heard of Juilliard and because of that, their parents and they assume it is the only place to go, that it is the ‘best’ and so forth, so they get a ton of applications, a lot of whom quite frankly are nowhere near the level. Whereas places like CIM and NEC are not household names to many, so they may very well get less kids applying, but it could be that the 25% they admit are as good as the 6% that Juilliard admits (I make no claims of total truth to this). For example, let’s say Juilliard has 1000 kids auditioning, and in the end, they admit 60. NEC or CIM that same year might only audition 240, but admit 60, so their rate is 25%…but it could be those 60 kids are just as strong (and yes, this is a silly number, made up to not challenge my diminishing math skills, and non existent statistics skills)…just showing that the percent admitted may not mean much.</p>
<p>The real answer is what is said on here time and again, that statistics and numbers in the end mean little, it is often at the more micro level that decisions about schools are made. A violin student gets into Juilliard but gets into the study of teacher X and Teacher Y, when they wanted Z, but gets into CIM and gets into the studio of M, who they consider to be better by far than X or Y, whether CIM for example as a whole is as high a level might have little meaning, if they feel that M’s studio is better than anything that Juilliard offered on their instrument. When you get to the high level programs, there are so many variables the statistics mean little, while a school that admits the same percentage of students as let’s say NEC might not be very good, because they are admitting 25% percent but the overall pool auditioning there is much poorer than the pool at NEC.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t look at the admittance rate among the most competitive music schools, I would look at the teachers in the program and see what they are turning out, that kind of yield is much better:) </p>