<p>I've heard good things about this place... I was wondering if anyone currently going or went on the campus visit can prove or negate that. Oh, and it's for Voice majors.</p>
<p>Recently went on the tour at New School with my rising senior twins and husband. We were all completely underwhelmed and another group with us on the tour were furious that they had wasted their time and let the folks know it when they filled out the requested evaluation form. Not one of us were impressed with anything about the school, terrible guide, poor reception at the welcome center, poor communication about the tour, little real information provided on the tour, unimpressive facilities, etc. Way way way too laid back even for my jazz/contemporary kids. That being said, they have a friend going into junior year of Jazz Studies there who loves it there, he is a totally chill kind of kid though.</p>
<p>New School tour was tough to go on after touring NYU. I understand that the majority of students attending New School go to the Parsons School of Design. I am not so sure about the music. Your mileage may vary!</p>
<p>I auditioned and was accepted to the Jazz Voice program there. I decided not to attend, however. Echoing what musictwins has said, I was also a bit underwhelmed. The staff as well as the admissions guy who was my interviewer were all friendly yet professional and the audition process ran pretty smoothly… because I seemed to be the only one there at the time. That may be normal for some schools, I don’t know, but it kind of threw me off. All the other schools I’d auditioned at had so many kids lined up that there were barely enough practice rooms available. My interview went well and the audition was okay, but the impromptu and informal tour afterward was not so great. My student “tour guide” brought us into a keyboarding room filled with ripped up piano benches and chalk scrawled all over the keyboards! I mean, I’m not one to pass up a good education simply because a building isn’t pretty, but the benches literally had huuuge tears in all of the cushions. The student “guide” really didn’t say much to sell the school either. There didn’t seem to be many other students there, and this was in early February I think… I’ve heard from several people who are in-the-know that The New School Jazz is a great choice, an amazing school, etc, but the overall atmosphere just didn’t appeal to me and didn’t seem like the most enjoyable college experience. I still would have probably attended had I not gotten into my top few choices, but it wasn’t my favorite.</p>
<p>The positives of New School is the NYC location and some excellent faculty like Reggie Workman & Jay Clayton. </p>
<p>Things we didn’t like about New School echo what other posters have said. Plus the music department is really only 2 shared floors in the main building.</p>
<p>wow… the negatives seem to outweigh the benefits… i appreciate all your comments, thank you.</p>
<p>I have to say that my family was really looking forward to touring the New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music and the disappointment was huge! Took the wind right out of our sails. Everyone we came in contact with just seemed bored. Welcome center greeter could not put his sandwich down long enough to talk to us, tour guide was terrible, uninformative and saying things that a tour guide should not be saying! Jazz department representative had so little information about the program it was embarrassing. My kids were so turned off!! The location is great but at the price there seem to be better options.</p>
<p>We toured several schools and had bad tours at New School, University of the Arts and NEC. </p>
<p>Berklee and NYU had their acts together, good tours at both those schools.</p>
<p>University of North Texas has a well-respected Jazz program for both vocalists and and instrumentalists, and the cost reasonable. Patricia Racette went there, intending upon majoring in Jazz Voice but the opera world is very pleased that she decided to switch!</p>
<p>Correct me if I’m wrong but UNT is great for jazz voice but not contemporary which the op wants. Same for NEC. Pretty sure UArts does not have contemporary either. Interestingly, NYU does not have undergrad jazz voice but does have Recorded Music (Clive Davis).</p>
<p>Even with the discouraging reviews New School should be on the list simply because there are so few choices.</p>
<p>Yes, AGSMom, I believe you are correct, but I don’t see where the OP was restricting to contemporary only. Perhaps I missed it in another thread…
While I do think that students should investigate potential schools for themselves, I don’t necessarily agree that a school “should be on the list simply because there are so few choices”. While this may not apply to this particular school, the only way to let a place know that they need to improve is to “vote with your feet” and a loss of students is a loss to the bottom line, financially, which can make a place sit up and take notice! The lack of attention to the physical plant could be indicative of poor faculty, failing administration or other problems which would negatively impact the student. Go look, by all means, but “Caveat emptor” is a good reminder given the information from those who have taken the time to share their impressions in this thread.</p>
<p>I haven’t heard from anyone on this forum that actually attended the Clive Davis program in NYU … my D had that on her list to apply, but once her Berklee acceptance came in she never followed up w/ the audition process. I know 27dreams was accepted there and is not attending, but does anyone know of anyone that graduated from that program? And if so, what are they doing now?</p>
<p>@MezzosMama, in total agreement that op has to check New School for him/herself. Just pointing out that with few choices it makes sense not to rule anything out too early. Keep it on the list for consideration.</p>
<p>Looking for jazz voice schools this time last year was an experience. All the jazz instrumentalists in D’s pc classes had a much different list of potentials because most of the prominent conservatories do not have jazz voice. I can only imagine that contemporary voice is even more challenging!</p>
<p>I am floored at the negative responses listed here. I currently attend the jazz school and it has been an absolutely amazing experience so far. The curriculum is outstanding! Truly a wealth of knowledge in every way possible that is making me the kind of musician I’ve always desired to be. I really cannot say enough good things about this school and how grateful I am that I chose it. I promise you, if you attend here, you will not only learn but be inspired tenfold along the way.</p>
<p>I thought I would chime in since I did not let my son apply to the New School. My reasons have nothing to do with the quality of the Jazz program, which I was told was top-notch but more about other things I knew my son needed in order to have a successful college experience. The New School used to be a college for adults and continuing education students. It is only in the past couple of years that they have expanded and 18 year olds who do not live in New York actually have it on their application list. That is because of the quality of their faculty. I feel like the New School would be an amazing place to do graduate work, but I felt that my son would not get the sort of social-emotional and educational support he needed to really grow and develop. </p>
<p>As for the person who said they had a bad tour at NEC. I have to admit that I hated our tour at NEC. We live locally and my son had attended prep at NEC and summer programs at Berklee so I was familiar with both schools. We toured both on a very rainy February day my son’s Junior year. The tours were interesting because I realized that although I knew the schools through these other programs I did not know their college programs. After the tours I was pro-Berklee and anti-NEC for our son. I could not imagine my son attending college at NEC. It felt small and claustrophobic. I did not get the curriculum at NEC which felt very old fashioned, where Berklee’s curriculum seemed to be set up to produce people who could actually work as musicians in todays world. Where did my son end up? NEC. How did that happen? Well it was always his first choice. He was not nearly as thrown off by the bad tour as I was. He already had friends who were upperclassman and graduate students at NEC. After he was accepted to schools he re-visited many of them and shadowed kids who were there. We made him go through the process of actively crossing schools off his list and providing us reasons why he was. One school was too far. One school our son just didn’t like. One school did not offer him money. One was too big and not as nurturing as our son would like. NYU-the administration was difficult to work with and his older sister had been an undergraduate there and had similar frustrations. NEC-felt comfortable, he liked the curriculum and he was excited to be in Boston. </p>
<p>Lesson-I would not judge everything by the tour and if your child still wants to apply let them and then have them shadow a student for a day once they are admitted so they can get a real feel for the place and what it is like to be a student there.</p>
<p>Great stuff as always, StacJip! And for what it’s worth, my son and husband actually had a good tour experience at New School in June 2011 and my son later auditioned and was accepted, but ultimately found another school was a better fit for him for undergrad.</p>
<p>I think despite our less than stellar tours, that the New School For Jazz, NEC and U Arts are all fine programs with much to offer. I was speaking about the tours specifically and they were not good. The programs at those schools were considered and my kids chose not to apply feeling that there were other places that might be a better fit for them. Decisions were not based on a mid summer tour of the facility. No disrespect was intended to any of the Jazz programs.</p>
<p>Hi, I’m from NY and I’m looking to apply to the New School for Jazz and Contemporary music as a singer. I haven’t been trained, just plenty of raw (good) talent and experience from years of singing in church and such. Unfortunately, I don’t have any skills in any music theory, sight singing, or how to sing jazz… but I feel that I can learn enough jazz music, especially in finding out that they have song suggestions, to audition. My question is, how well does the school expect you to sing for your audition? I know this may be hard to explain, but any input from anyone who currently attends the school or has recently graduated, or who just knows what’s realistic here… I’m very passionate about this. Thanks for your help!!</p>