Thanks for the report, @chollist. Always eager for the rare clarinet mention in these pages. USC isn’t on our list, but UGH those odds for clarinet are daunting! Best wishes in your S’s quest for Rice!
@chollist yes it is very exclusive… he should be proud he made that cut. The horn department is similar. Mr. VerMuelan said there were 70 applicants… 15 were chosen to have live auditions… they will take one of those 15… so our fingers are crossed but the odds are low so we go on to the next one… Eastman… Rice is her first choice btw. Houston was pretty easy to drive in for us since we come from Southern California where traffic is HORRIBLE!! lol
@mom2clarinetobsessedkid, thank you and also best wishes to your clarinetist!
@mperrine, I wish you and your daughter all the best at Eastman. Be well prepared for cold weather!
@joeycorp What was your daughter’s final decision? She sounds exactly like my daughter! We loved Wes and Tufts and will be touring Vassar in a few weeks. Would love to know your thoughts and/or advice on the process now that you are done!
HI @LAKAnd! This has been very interesting. She was denied at Vassar and Tufts and WL at Wesleyan, but in the end she’d lost interest in all of them. Wes’s focus is world music/ethnomusicology, and she was very disappointed in the classical offerings (esp. the chorus). The music dept chair at Vassar told her pointblank they wouldn’t listen to her original music on her arts supplement so not to bother. Tufts was the most intriguing with a new wide-ranging music major, but it was the least good fit overall of those three.
The two LACs that proved the most exciting were Dickinson–a surprisingly strong music dept with an amazing chair–and Skidmore, very artsy overall. In the end, those were her two favorites of the LACs and her third and second choices, respectively. Both have music merit $ too.
The surprise winner, a late entrant to our process, is Frost School of Music at U Miami. It’s going to give her everything she wants: a BA Music, with classical voice as her primary instrument (you have to audition even for the BA!) and we’re waiting to find out if she was accepted into the singer/songwriter minor, CAM. Even if she wasn’t, she can still study contemporary songwriting, and minor in Italian, study abroad, and still get a good, well-rounded education. Their emphasis on pre-professional music is a bit like Berklee, but with more flexibility and better academic surroundings. We’re going down next weekend for admitted students’ day just to be sure, but barring anything unforeseen, that’s where she’s headed next year!
Here is a big piece of advice re arts supplements at LACs: Don’t wait until you submit your application to look at the requirements! We did not do this and were very surprised to find that we needed to do more than just send recordings. They all had short answer questions, and a few had longer essay requirements about music! If we had waited to submit until right before the deadline and discovered this then, it would have been a mad scramble.
Good luck!
P.S. She was also accepted at U Rochester and Ithaca, both solid choices for what we wanted.
Just beginning the search for my rising junior multi-instrumentalist. Just a straight performance major isn’t the right fit for him as he’s got diverse interests in composition, orchestrations, production and more. Aside from Berklee and Miami having a hard time finding programs that are not either/or performance or composition and where you can do both plus… any suggestions?
PM’ed you @bmom37
I have a HS sophomore daughter with similar interests to @bmom37’s son. I’d love to hear other suggested programs.
Just found this site 
Anyone have insight into the music programs at University of North Texas, U of Miami, or USC for music production, composition? Are they primarily performance schools? DS plays three different instruments and loves performing, but knows he is not at elite level. Thus he is not so interested in performance as he is on composition /production. Is there another school to look at? Or in a different area on this site? Thanks so much!
UNT, Frost and USC all have very strong composition programs. USC is probably the best of the 3 (excellent faculty)but they are all strong. UNT has a well-respected grad program that is strong in electronic work. USC has a well-respected grad film scoring program. Miami Frost is strong in contemporary work it would seem, from this forum and the website, but also has classical composition. (These views are of course anecdotal…and my own.)
When you write “composition/production” it is a little confusing. They can be separate majors, or they can be linked/integrated. Classical composition will include some work with electronics, amd is primarily creative, on the one hand, and then there is the more technical studio work in music production, studio arts, audio technology, music technology, recording technology and other majors that may have much in common but different terminology.
Here are some links to various schools with music production type programs, and most of them have composition as well. There are many more. For creative technology, look at Oberlin’s TIMARA and Brown’s MEME as well.
http://www.berklee.edu/majors includes contemporary writing/production, production/design, film etc.
http://online.berklee.edu/music-production online only, of course they also have on campus
http://www.uml.edu/FAHSS/music/Programs/Undergraduate/SRT/Sound-Recording-Technology.aspx includes internships-very well regarded nationally
http://www.northeastern.edu/camd/music/academic-programs/bs-in-music-industry/ includes coop
http://www.emerson.edu/academics/departments/visual-media-arts/undergraduate-programs/audiosound-design
http://harttweb.hartford.edu/undergraduate/music/production.aspx excellent conservatory w/music production, affordable
http://www.purchase.edu/departments/AcademicPrograms/Arts/music/programs.aspx excellent conservatory w/studio composition and studio production, just outside NYC, very affordable
http://www.clarku.edu/departments/clarkarts/music/ Clark has production elements and scoring etc. but NO AUDITION- the advantage of a college / university versus conservatory/music school (but you can submit work as an arts supplement)
https://www.ithaca.edu/academics/majors-minors/sound-recording-technology-bm
https://peabody.jhu.edu/academics/degrees-programs/bm/bmrecarts/
https://smtd.umich.edu/departments/performing-arts-technology/
https://liberalarts.du.edu/lamont/academics/undergraduate-programs
https://www.colum.edu/academics/programs/music-bmus they also have
https://www.colum.edu/academics/programs/music-technology and audio arts
So Berklee, UMass Lowell, Northeastern, Emerson, Hartt at U of Hartford, SUNY Purchase, Clark U., Ithaca, Peabody (new program looks interesting), U. of Michigan, Lamont at U. of Denver, Columbia College Chicago are all in the above list. @MusicMomSC adds Elon, Carnegie Mellon, and of course Miami Frost which I forgot.
That list is geared to music production, technology etc. But these schools all will have composition as well.
USC has both classical compostion and music production which is in the contemporary music category. I have not checked UNT as yet.
And many many schools will have (classical) composition with courses in electronics. Including state universities, and including BA programs.
The difference, as I said, lies in programs with a technical focus with a lot of studio work versus the more traditional creative focus. And sometimes they can do both.
One thing: composition is not a backup major for those who feel their playing isn’t up to par. It is a pretty competitve field. But if a young person loves to do it, whether on paper or in Finale or using software or whatever, there are programs that will fit 
So at UNT, work in electronic/studio production is part of the composition program https://composition.music.unt.edu/about It is well-known for excellence in work in this area, including electroacoustic composition.
@compmom - Wow!! what a great list to peruse through! We have enjoyed linking to the various schools on your list and and reading up on the programs. Did not mean to be confusing on the Composition and/or Music Production reference, but think that my DS is trying to figure out what is a good fit. He loves his piano playing/composing (mostly classical & jazz bent as he works with his teacher) but enjoys physics and thinks that the audio production/software side is of interest as well, hence the ‘combo’.
Thank you sooooo much for the detailed response!! Lot’s to digest.
There will be a lot of studio production, work with computers and audio technology, within many composition programs as well. I do know one mult-faceted young person who enrolled in a music production program but found the focus to be narrow and found he didn’t want to spend all his time in a studio. That said, I also know someone who loved that. And I also know a person who studied music production as an undergrad but is getting a doctorate in composition. So there are many paths and a lot of flexibility over time
ps the Clark and UML links don’t work apparently. Sorry! Also that list is hardly complete. It’s a start!
Boyer @ Temple has a strong music technology program - not sure how good their composition program is… http://www.temple.edu/boyer/academicprograms/index.asp
@ihearmusic Just be aware that most composition programs require the student to also submit an instrument audition and it is not clear whether they hold the applicant to the same standard as they do the performance applicants. Of the schools my son applied to, only USC and Oberlin did not require this.
And all the schools he applied to as a composition major required at least a year of participation in an ensemble once you enroll. USC just changed their requirements to allow a year of chorus to count.
Hope that helps. Feel free to DM me if you want, as my son just went through this process last year.
It is possible to avoid instrumental auditions as a composition applicant ( and participation in performance) if that is desired.
At UNT, you audition in with an instrument, then apply to the composition dept, at least up until now/recently:
https://composition.music.unt.edu/composition-handbook/admissions#G-02
New(ish) member here jumping in to try to figure out where to start! My son is a HS junior and has his mind set on Trombone Performance for college, with a minor (or double major) in something like Applied Mathematics or Computer Programming. Music is his number one goal and passion, but we told him he needs to have an academic focus as well and math comes very easy to him so that’s where he is leaning. He has pretty good grades (4.16 WGPA/3.95 UW) and he’s working to bring up his SAT score (currently 1380).
Musically, he has been accepted to the Interlochen Summer Orchestral Program, he will be performing with the National Honor Band of America in Indianapolis in March, he was chosen for the National Youth Wind Symphony and for the Music for All National Marching Band that will perform at this year’s Rose Bowl Parade.
He wants to find a school with a strong Trombone Studio (where he can also study math) and is currently considering Vanderbilt, Rice, Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins/Peabody, Rochester/Eastman, UT Austin, UNT, Michigan State, ASU, Indiana, Colorado, Miami/Frost. He hasn’t visited ANY schools yet, and we obviously can’t see ALL of these since they are all so spread out around the country (and we are located in Arkansas).
We would love any feedback from any current or former trombone performance people out there! Thank you!
All music schools / universities in your list (OOS for you) seem very good but Eastman / Rochester comes first in my mind for classical / orchestral trombone. Have you consider Eastman summer trombone institute? If COA is your top priority, University of North Texas sounds like a reasonable option and great to study classical trombone. I don’t know how double major or major + minor works at those schools. Some schools in your list has a high academic threshold if applying for dual degree program which usually needs 5 years.
I really think that it is fine just to focus on music major (BM). Music performance major is very time and energy consuming. Some schools offer easier access to non-music academic classes as elective without doing double major or major + minor.
Music CAN be an academic focus. People get PhD’s and DMA’s in music Studying music involves theory, analysis, music history, technology, ethnomusicology and other areas of interest.
If he wants to do music, it will not be limiting in the future if he decides to work in a different field. He will have access to professional and grad schools and many careers. In fact, music majors have a high admit rate to med school.
It looks like he is looking mainly at BM programs- is that right? In which case 3/4 of his classes will be music, plus some gen eds. It will take some digging to find out whether math or computer science is possible.
If he wants to do math or computer science for a BS, on the other hand, he has a wide range of options including double degree, double major, major/minor, or majroing in math or computer science with music lessons and extracurricular performance.
Have him read the Double Degree Dilemma essay and identify which student he most resembles. It can be a helpful exercise.
He doesn’t need a “back up plan” unless he wants one! That said, computer science majors have a pretty certain path that does guarantee a more than living wage. I know some CS grads who then got an MM in their instrument!
One other thing: these days there is quite a bit of intersection between music and computer science, if he is interested…