I know that Yale has a fantastic graduate music program, but I have heard that its undergrads don’t have a ton of access to those professors and resources. I have even less knowledge of the piano departments of the other schools on this list, so I was wondering what you guys thought about their respective qualities. Although I’m probably good enough to make music a career, I doubt I’ll ultimately go down that path, and academics are my focus. However, it is important to me to have a good piano teacher in college, so any information on these schools (specifically the professors) would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Yale students more often than not study with grad students. However, there are exceptions for the exceptional. In addition, Yale and Princeton students often travel to NYC for private lessons with top teachers. Harvard students also can find private lessons outside of the university. It is not essential that a teacher be affiliated with a college - although if they are, there is usually a financial subsidy provided. All the schools on your list have access to areas with first rate pianists. Princeton has adjunct faculty in piano performance. I imagine Stanford does, as well. You can easily look up the faculty on their music department pages.
The Ivies and many elite colleges put an emphasis on music. While they may not have performance programs, they generally offer musical kids the opportunity to play, whether it be orchestras or chamber music, and they also may help pay for music lessons. Lot of the kids that went to some of the top prep programs end up at schools like HYP, and they often end up continuing on with music while getting an academic degree. Some of the schools have faculty that teach, others will pay for the student to have lessons outside the school, so there are a lot of options if you want to go that route.
One of the things I suggest, is if you are interested in this, send an e-mail to the schools and ask them, they are more than willing to answer questions about that, and you can get more details about what is available from them directly then anything we can do on here:).
In recent years, Harvard starting giving credit for lessons as well. Other schools do this too, I just happen to know that Harvard has focused more on applied arts under Drew Faust. Ditto on credit for performance in some extracurriculars. There is a student piano organization, I forget the name.