<p>As we think about future colleges for our 10th grader, we have been considering conservatories/academies abroad as well. We've looked at Canada, but we also want to look at some in Europe, specifically England, The Netherlands and Paris. The motivation is that we can't afford the conservatories in the U.S. that my daughter wants to attend. She doesn't want to attend a state university.</p>
<p>Does anyone have experience with either attending or applying for a conservatory in Europe as an undergraduate degree (as opposed to a one-year study abroad program)?</p>
<p>Our daughter knows she wants to study performance, and wants to go to a standalone conservatory (Or at least one where there aren't many general courses).</p>
<p>Depending on where you live, there may be a performing arts college fair that is close to you. These fairs are usually in the fall at a college or high school. Several european music schools were represented at the fair at my son’s school in Dallas. A google search for performing arts college fair should take you to the website.</p>
<p>Compdad, that’s a good suggestion for a place to start out.</p>
<p>My daughter already has several conservatories in mind and none of them are represented at the college art fair I looked up (for example, the Paris Conservatory). </p>
<p>Specifically, I wondering if anyone has experience
–attending a European conservatory
–then making a transition to the United States work as a musician, or going to graduate school in the US</p>
<p>AND</p>
<p>–do you have any suggestions, or examples of pros and cons on studying outside the United States that you experienced</p>
<p>Perhaps check faculty listings at US conservatories and music schools to find folks who studied there and get in contact with them. Hopefully someone on the board can help.</p>
<p>There have been a couple of posts in the past about this topic, IIRC. Perhaps someone more skilled at the forum’s search features than I can find them! There is also a woman who has posted to violinist.com and to one of the yahoo forums, specifically hs2coll, on this topic, who has a son who attends a music conservatory in Paris.</p>
<p>You can PM for specific questions about studying in Paris (though I did graduate study there, after doing an undergraduate degree also out of the US).</p>
<p>One thing I would say in general, is that although the fees are significantly less at most European institutions, some US conservatories do offer very generous scholarships if you qualify. I wouldn’t base your decision to study overseas on financial reasons… a couple of trips back and forth if your daughter is feeling very homesick will quickly add up!</p>
<p>Study in Europe is usually more “concentrated”, with course work being only in the specific major. That can cause a problem if the students then wants to attend grad school in the US, because those “missing” courses may have to be made up- which adds up to more time and expense.
While the basic tuition may seem less, living expenses can easily eat up any savings. London and Paris are two of the most expensive cities in the world in which to live(Amsterdam is very, very costly too) and travel back and forth to the US for the student and/or parents is not cheap. Also remember to think about health care; US students are not eligible for the national health care systems in those countries and private care is super-pricey and not always easy to obtain. The Euro to US dollar exchange rate is NOT favorable to us and I don’t expect that to change any time soon. A pair of jeans that could be bought in a nice mall here for $60 will run at least triple that in Europe. Fishee is spot on with the advice to look at the scholarships at schools here. A semester abroad or waiting until graduate school might be a better option and one that would be easier to navigate.
Remember that instruction in Paris will be in French, so fluency is required, spoken and written. In The Netherlands, it’s Dutch, so… Schools abroad don’t cut foreign students the slack that we do in the language area, it’s sink or swim.</p>
<p>Um…Dutch is not necessarily required for study in the Netherlands, unless you plan to study Music Ed. I know that this is the case specifically at the Royal Conservatory at Hague, D had a few lessons with a teacher there and performed at a master class.
<a href=“http://www.koncon.nl/en/Application[/url]”>www.koncon.nl/en/Application</a> and enrollment/International students</p>
<p>All going well, thanks! My son turns 4 tomorrow, and is very much a NYC boy now - knows all the subway lines etc. Hard to believe that 2 years have passed.</p>
<p>musica, might that be for the Master’s Level and above? I know that higher level courses are given in English- at least some of them- but the singers I’ve known who took undergrad courses there had to do so in Dutch. I do know that many of the schools in The Hague make the effort to offer instruction in English now, which is really unique in Europe.</p>
<p>It is odd----but if you look at the section for “foreign students” grad and undergrad the English test is required. In the student handbook “students who plan to stay longer than a few years” are encouraged to learn Dutch. We were surprised by this last year when a friend of D’s applied for a graduate course (similar to an artists diploma) in voice. When my daughter was looking at grad schools, this conservatory was on her initial list.</p>
<p>I just think it’s funny. All this talk about “if you study in France you’ll need to be fluent in french” etc. If you’ve been on a campus here lately, speaking English fluently definitely does not seem to be a requisite! LOL</p>
<p>My son is looking to study at a conservatory within a university here and do a semester if not a year abroad in the UK. Like others have mentioned, we figured that the logistics and expense of travel would preclude us from sending him abroad for his entire education. Though McGill in Canada could have been an alternative.</p>
<p>Do be careful with the “study abroad for a semester” idea and check it out carefully at the schools your child is looking at. My D learned that Rice does not allow performance majors to do a semester abroad.</p>
<p>My S’s top two choices are BU and FSU. BU has an arrangement with the Royal College or Music in London and studying there is common for Performance Majors. FSU said it wasn’t uncommon for Performance Majors but they had arrangements with certain schools. I didn’t look into that they were yet.</p>
<p>It’s highly improbable that studying in England is going to be cheaper than studying in the US. The tuition for international students at the Royal Academy, for instance, is around 19,000 pounds – after the exchange, only a little less than private conservatory tuitions here, and then you have to live in London. </p>
<p>However, the situation is much better elsewhere. The Netherlands is an excellent option. Utrecht, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam are excellent schools, and English is the language of instruction. Fees for non-EU students are around 8000 euros/year. In Germany, the fees are lower still, though the language requirements are much stricter. Freiburg, Koln, Munich, Stuttgart, and Berlin are exciting places to study. </p>
<p>To get in to the Paris Conservatory, you probably need good connections with the faculty there – it’s a very close-knit community. Admission is extremely competitive. </p>
<p>At any of these places, your child will find a very different institutional structure than at home. To put it simply, there may not be very much to do besides practice; I’m not speaking of a lack of general education, but more radically of minimal orchestra time and less organized chamber music. In all cases, of course, education is what the student makes of it, but European conservatories take the attitude that a course of study should be strongly self-directed. If that sounds good to your child, then it could work very well. The transition to American graduate schools should be fine; Europeans and European-trained Asians are a sizable demographic in America’s best graduate programs, and they do fine, although they’re often slightly puzzled by the number of events they’re asked to attend!</p>
<p>For us, travel is not such a problem, as we have frequent flier miles. Our eldest daughter spent five years in Italy studying art. Over all it was cheaper than sending her to our state university.</p>
<p>Amsterdam would be a possible conservatory and yes the language there is English. Having lived in The Netherlands for three years, I know that knowing Dutch is not a requirement for school or getting around.</p>
<p>The information provided by the Paris conservatory says that a performance major needs to know French at a B1 level, so full fluency is not required. The professor she wants to study with is fluent in English and yes she has met him. The undergrad degree is only 3 years which is appealing to my daughter. And she’s a self-starter. She’s already playing in many chamber groups, orchestras and pit orchestras, so cutting back on that and practicing more would work fine for her. Plus, she’d be taking lessons on her second instrument anyway, keeping busy.</p>
<p>She’ll apply in the US too, but we already know that her first choice here, NEC, doesn’t give much in the way of merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Another advantage to Paris is that the conservatory doesn’t require piano study. My daughter already plays enough instruments; she doesn’t need to add another one.</p>
<p>Tuition in France and The Netherlands is a bit over 4,000 Euros (that’s what I read on their websites) right now for a foreigner. so far cheaper than American conservatories. She could only study in London with a scholarship as it is much more expensive.</p>
<p>It’s good to hear about foreign musicians coming to the States for grad school and not having issues with the degree transfer/courses.</p>