<p>Anyone know much about Peabody? I am especially interested in thoughts on violin there and on safety of area. We have a a visit scheduled soon but this is a school I just don't know that much about and would love welcome thoughts. Thanks. </p>
<p>My daughter loves it there. She went there because of the teacher–and she doesn’t play violin, so I can’t help you there. She doesn’t have any issues with safety, and she takes Amtrak frequently, going to and from Peabody. But she has common sense, doesn’t drink heavily or do drugs, and doesn’t wander around after midnight unless she’s had a gig and then she is with others. </p>
<p>We recently visited and were not impressed with the area, which is a shame, since it’s the historic district. It’s a (very) quiet residential neighborhood. There’s just not a whole lot going on. So if your daughter would consider that a plus, i.e. an oasis of calm that affords plenty of undistracted time to practice her craft, then it may be just the place for her.</p>
<p>While we were touring, we looked at the bulletin boards we passed, just to see what was going on socially or musically, and there were /several/ recent security incident postings. Some of them were unnerving. Almost all schools have incidents, however, and every school’s Security office will have an information website/webpage like this: <a href=“http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/campussecurity/awareness/alerts.html”>http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/campussecurity/awareness/alerts.html</a></p>
<p>The above noted, while many schools have incidents, they are not usually stabbings in the neighborhood. That said, a thorough reading of the JHU Peabody security site also shows what appears to be a recent spate of incidents in an otherwise uneventful year. And very little in the way of property thefts… the last theft postings were from 2012. Still, if this is a trend, I would be concerned about sending my dd there. </p>
<p>There was a recent thread on crime statistics and safety - Peabody being one of them. Here is the link:</p>
<p><a href=“Crime statistics: Cleveland, Baltimore, Philly, Boston - Music Major - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/1685479-crime-statistics-cleveland-baltimore-philly-boston-p1.html</a></p>
<p>Sometimes good schools are not located in great areas. When my brother went to Columbia back in the late 70’s, while the upper west side to the west of Broadway was good, to the east and north you have morningside heights/harlem, and even areas to the east of Broadway in the 90’s were not so great back then…today given the gentrification that has happened Columbia is no longer bordered by more dangerous areas, but back it would look like Columbia was unsafe, if you looked at crime stats in Harlem or Morningside heights at the time…yet Columbia’s campus was at the time relatively bordered, and they had a pretty strong security apparatus, so crimes that happened were pretty petty (thefts of personal items, occassional pickpocket) that go on in a lot of places. University of Chicago was in an area when I visited it in the early 80’s that was pretty bad, but again, the campus was safe (I hear the surrounding area isn’t so good even today). Last I checked, the area Yale is in isn’t too hot, either…</p>
<p>Obviously, it is something to be taken into consideration, but you also have to be careful about the reality versus the perceptions of things, and you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Columbia’s facilities when my brother went there (and NYU’s when I went there) were not the greatest, but there are plenty of schools with brand new facilities where you might be taking science classes that claim the great flood was a real event…:).</p>
<p>From everything I have heard of Peabody, the experience there all boils down to what the person wants out of it, it comes down to the teacher (as it does at most schools). Conventional wisdom (and take that for what it is), is that the typical/average level of student at Peabody is not as high as the very high end conservatories, but that there are some great teachers there, so it really depends on the student. Like many older schools, the facilities at Peabody may not be that of other schools (few schools can do what Juilliard did when they renovated several years ago, spend that kind of money), and a newer program might have better facilities, so that does factor into the mix. Peabody is one of those places where people seem to be evenly divided, some love it and some seem to hate it, and like with any school in the end the student needs to visit it, talk to people there, do lessons with the teachers, and then see what they think, filter that with what everyone else is saying. </p>