Thorton School of Music Academics

College Majors Music Major
1

<p>Hello all, I haven't posted in a while, but whenever I have I've always received the information I was looking for, so lets see if anyone out there can help me with this one.</p>

<p>I am here on the west coast, I am a voice major applicant. I am scheduling a lesson with Rod Gilfry down in USC, and as I think about this, I wonder if applying to Thorton School of Music is a futile effort due to my relatively low grades.</p>

<p>I have:</p>

<p>UW: 3.25
W: 3.77</p>

<p>SAT Reading 660 Writing 640 Math 590</p>

<p>I am very curious to find out how much my academic performance will damage my chances of attending Thorton. If anyone has any input it would be greatly appreciated, thanks!</p>

2

<p>Baritonebass, we recently went through a similar thread with Lifeofsolitude, who is a violinist. The summary is that with lowish grades and scores, you would need to be at the top of your musical game. Mr. Gilfry will be able to assess that for you. As I mentioned in the previous thread, I’ve observed that USC tends to take a holistic approach to grades and scores. If your family background is modest, or your parents never went to college, and you demonstrated great promise by showing that you really got ahead with the circumstances you were given in life, then you would have a much better shot than if your family background is one of greater opportunity. See what happens at your sample lesson. If you really want to go there then go ahead and apply, but be realistic and be prepared to spend a LOT of time on that application.</p>

3

<p>USC looks at the UW GPA (although they do assess the rigor of courses), and both your GPA and SAT are a bit low for USC. The rule of thumb for USC Admissions is that even with incredible musicianship, they still must feel that you can succeed academically there. So there are basically some “unstated” minimums with regard to GPA and SAT. Gilfry or, more likely, someone in Thornton Admissions will be able to elaborate.</p>

<p>My son is a rising sophomore at Thornton. We know of solid musicians with similar stats to yours who didn’t made the cut. I posted some relevant threads in Lifeofsolitude’s thread, if you want to check.</p>

<p>Any chance you can bring up your SAT? That would help counter your GPA.</p>

4

<p>Thanks for the responses, I really appreciate it. I am taking the SAT again in October, so I suppose we will see how that goes.</p>

5

<p>Hi,
so I am applying to schools now
I am applying to USC, Juilliard, Pepperdine, UCM, UCR, Carnegie Mellon, Peabody institute, University of Washington, U of Massachusetts-Amherst
as a music major BA degree
my top choice is USC Thornton School of Music as a classical voice major; Soprano.
My problem is that my GPA is really low
its about 2.9-3.0 UW
and my SAT is about 1980
I got 1st and 2nd places in many competitions,
and did my internship at Colburn School of performing Arts
I also got a young artist award and performed with Southern Philharmonic Orchestra.
I have performed in Wat Disney Concert Hall as an Honor’s choir,
I have been a section leader now 4 years,
I have been a soloist for 4 years also.
how much does grade matter for above schools ESPECIALLY USC
also I am currently studying with a professor at Pepperdine. Will it higher the chance of me getting into Pepperdine?
Thank you so much for your time!</p>

6

<p>The thing about Thornton is this: if you are one of Thornton’s tippy top picks after your audition (and I mean top of their list), they will “fight” for your acceptance with the general Admissions people, even if your GPA/tests are a bit low. But from what we’ve heard and seen, a GPA below 3.4/3.5UW makes that fight a bit harder, since USC Admissions needs to feel confident you will succeed at the school. Higher test scores will obviously strengthen Thornton’s argument.</p>

<p>That’s about the best way to answer it.</p>

<p>Obviously, if you are NOT an audition/portfolio-type applicant (music, film, etc.), in other words if you are strictly an academic applicant, a 2.9-3.4UW makes you a very unlikely admit to USC. But it’s all different when they’re looking at talent as well.</p>

7

<p>Julliard’s degree is not a BA, but rather a BM as are some of the other schools on your list. And I would expect that your low GPA will impact decisions, especially at schools like Carnegie Mellon, USC and possibly even UW. While all of the choral involvement is nice, it’s not going to make a difference to admissions committees at most of the schools on your list either. As for studying with a teacher at a school to which you are applying, it will make you more at ease during the audition, but usually has little or no impact upon acceptance- you’ll still need a great audition to convince the rest of the committee.</p>

8

<p>For Juilliard and Peabody, your grades will basically not matter at all, it is all going to be about how well you sing on the audition and if a teacher there wants to teach you, period.They do check grades, but only to make sure you aren’t someone who totally fouls up, I am talking D’s and F’s, if the admissions people are any guide (in part, because a BM degree requires academic study, music theory, ear training, music history, languages (for voice), require academic rigor, as does analyzing music which a musician does.</p>

<p>At the other schools, where you have to be admitted academically as well as via the audition (assuming you are doing a BM), the grades and scores could hurt you. What others have said is my understanding as well, that if your academics are below where they normally look to admit kids, you need to be up there musically, be at the edge of the bell curve musically not in the middle of their admissions, the academic admission will make allowances for someone musically up there but academically below the usual academic level (on the other hand, a kid out there academically but not that good musically is not going to get into the school of music, though they would get in their academically, the school of music basically doesn’t look at the grades, they look at the audition, and if you don’t make the cut musically having a 4.0/2200 SAT won’t get you into the school of music). </p>

<p>I agree, try to get your SAT score up, and also get an assessment of your musical ability (winning competitions may or may not indicate how you stack up against a typical admitted music student, not all competitions are particularly useful, given how high a bar there is for music admissions, a lot of kids audition at Juilliard and Curtis and NEC and USC and other top music programs, have won a ton of competitions, and find out that they weren’t playing at the level of those programs…</p>

<p>My take is unless it would be a financial burden to do so, it doesn’t hurt to try, if you are musically good enough (which a lesson with the teacher you mentioned prob will tell you about where you are), then it is always worth a shot and see how the cards lay, there are a lot of variables involved.</p>