<p>Fiddlefrog-</p>
<p>With certain species of frog, gender doesn’t matter anyway, they can change from male to female (not sure about the back again)…<em>lol</em>.</p>
<p>Accreditation usually serves as an advertising pitch, that the school in question meets a defined set of criteria. For academic schools, it indicates that what the school is teaching meets certain standards, which, for example, if it is a secondary school it can tell a college looking at a student there that it has met certain criteria, a certain level. From reading NASM’s website, it seems to me that it acts both as an accrediting agency and as a kind of clearinghouse and marketing group for the member schools, they have a national convention and so forth. It is interesting who is or isn’t on the list, some of the so called ‘top schools’ like CIM and NEC are on there, as is Curtis, but none of the three conservatories here in NYC (Juilliard, MSM or Mannes) seem to be members.</p>
<p>I also would be careful about accreditation and how much weight I would give it personally, because accreditation doesn’t necessarily give a view of how good the program is, it doesn’t indicate how high level the teachers are, for example, it just says they meet standards (NASM has pretty good information on their website about what it means to be accredited). As they say,it means the school has met the basic standards of the organization in how they do music education, I would gather in terms of how much individual instruction, ensemble training, and in things like ear training and theory and so forth as well. It also usually involves standards for admissions, like having a universal answer by date, etc…on the other hand it does give basis for comparison. </p>
<p>Violinia, I have to agree with Mezzo and fiddlefrog, no one is trying to discredit the school, the questions asked are legitimate. I pointed out, for example, that with a new school like this it is hard to say how well students are doing, because it is so new. "Up and coming’ programs know this, and they have to find ways to gain the kind of reputation that attracts students. Bard’s program is new, and one of the ways they are gaining a reputation is by hiring teachers and faculty who already have a track record, and that tends to attract top level students, they also aggressively recruit from what I can see. Other schools trying to build their program will use inducements like full ride scholarships to get top level students to go to a program that isn’t necessarily seen as being ‘top level’…
One of the side effects of what Mezzo said, that many or most classical musicians get grad degrees, is that you can get a degree from a more modest program and be able to get into a grad program…In the end, what is going to attract top students to a program is going to be results. Yes, there are students who go to the name conservatories who think the name itself means something, but they find out pretty quickly that it isn’t the name but the quality of the teacher/program that gets them where they want to be, and that is what establishes. The Colburn school has a strong inducement, that it is a total free ride I believe, but if it didn’t also have top teachers in the program who have achieved things as teachers, it wouldn’t attract the students it does. If the program there at Sunderman starts showing results, students who graduate and go to top level grad programs and/or careers, it will sell the school, if students coming out end up not doing much in music, it will steer kids away from it.</p>