<p>HI,
My DD, a woodwind player, is looking for top academic universities that also have very strong orchestras where the orchestra would be open to a non music major. From playing in a some high level orchestras - youth orchestra, summer, pre-college - she's used to playing in strong ensembles where the kids are all pretty good and very dedicated, even though most of them aren't even planning on being music majors. Good chamber music would also be a big plus.</p>
<p>She is not interested in West Coast or South. She is not interested in schools under 4,000 kids nor in the boonies She likes intellectual kids who would be pursuing a mix of types of majors, likes diversity and liberal values. No interest in Greek Life.</p>
<p>Thumbs up so far: "vetted" their orchestras and given a thumbs up- Yale, Harvard, Northwestern, UMichigan (her safety)</p>
<p>Queston marks: she thinks she is interested, but not sure about their orchestras - Columbia (and not Columbia/Juilliard), she liked Tufts, but we don't know about their orch. if you are not in dual NEC program, UChicago (went there, loved it, but didn't get to check out the orchestra)</p>
<p>Rejected - Hopkins JHU orchestra did not seem strong and not interested in Peabody. McGill - doesn't want to be iN Canada, NYU - not campus-y enough Princeton - has been told it's very preppy and conservative and since she has legacy at Yale Harvard, figures doesn't make sense to add another reach school.</p>
<p>Anything we are missing in this academic range?
Thanks!</p>
UMich can’t be anyone’s safety no matter how high her stats and impressive her resume are.</p>
<p>You would get more answers on the Music forum, lots of very knowledgeable parents there.</p>
<p>Oberlin likely to be a low match, St Olaf and Lawrence safeties (with merit aid) but does not meet all criteria (smaller than 4,000, away from big cities). Not sure about URochester’s situation for non music majors.</p>
<p>Since she doesn’t want to major in music my interpretation is that she just want to enjoy her passion. My D was the same way. She wanted to be able to play in an orchestra without devoting her study time to music. She is an engineering major and in the end chose Purdue. She applied to Northwestern that has an orchestra for non majors but I believe is not associated with there music school. Case Western also has an excellent orchestra. The Cleveland Symphony’s music hall is within the University Circle as well as the Cleveland Institute of Music. It just comes in at 4000 undergraduate students. Purdue has two orchestras, a symphony orchestra for those who played in high school but were not involved in higher tier orchestras and the Philharmonic Orchestra for those who were more advanced. D was accepted to Philharmonic but class schedules didn’t fit with their rehearsals so she is in the Symphony Orchestra. What Purdue doesn’t have is a music program. The orchestra is a two hour class, an easy A and an opportunity for her to chill out a few hours a week and do what she enjoys. Good luck in your selection.</p>
<p>One comment–she may be an excellent player, but as a woodwind player in particular she will have the issue of getting into the orchestra in the first place. At Yale, for example, there are many excellent players, and some really fine woodwind players play in the Yale Concert Band because there aren’t enough slots in the YSO. So you might want to also consider what alternatives there are to the top orchestra–at Yale, in addition to the band, there are several student-run orchestras which range from really good to more for fun.</p>
<p>Thanks all. That’s the great thing (and the hard thing too) about a lot of the large, excellent schools. They have a lot of opportunities for musicians, but they also have so many talented kids who apply. I guess we’re on the right track with our list. She hasn’t 100% decided not to major, or perhaps double major, in music which is part of the issue in her deciding. Kind of the what if thing for her right now, but there’s always the masters degree…</p>
<p>UPenn has a symphony orchestra that is very good. Mostly non-majors. Penn is far less preppy and more liberal than Princeton, but still an Ivy with top academics. </p>
<p>Do Northwestern and Michigan have high level orchestras for non-majors? Usually the rule of thumb is you’re better off at a university which does not have a School of Music - such as Yale, Princeton, Tufts, and Harvard. All those schools are full of students who could have chosen the conservatory route. If she’s willing to look at smaller schools she should check out Vassar, Swarthmore and Williams.
I would definitely recommend asking this question on the Music Major Forum. It’s been asked a number of times before ( if you can figure out the new search function you should be able to find some of the threads.) Here’s one thread I found from the past: <a href=“college orchestras - Music Major - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/634244-college-orchestras.html</a></p>
<p>@rjkofnovi Do you know anything first hand about the quality of the non-music major orchestras at Northwestern and Michigan? Just about every university with a School of Music also offers a separate orchestra for the general college population - where non-majors can participate. However, the question is how high a level is the playing in that orchestra? The OP’s daughter is used to an elite level of performance. My feeling is she might feel like she really belonged in the orchestra with the music majors, rather than the one she is allowed to participate in. But I don’t know myself what the orchestras outside of the schools of music are like at Northwestern and Michigan. I do know they’re supposed to be fantastic at Yale and Princeton…</p>
<p>If she’s willing to bend her size and location rule, look at Williams. Excellent music department, excellent symphony and several ensembles, wide and deep performance opportunities even for non-majors. Excellent overall academics as well, with many students who are both academics and arts driven.</p>
<p>One of the youth from my church plays cello in Vilanova’s orchestra and is not a music major.I don’t know about the reputation of the orchestra however.</p>
<p>Thanks again everyone. We’re definitely going to add Penn to the list at least to check out, but feel that all the ivies are a reach for most kids so we want to have a few other schools. We went to Tufts, which you mentioned, spiritmanager, and she liked it a lot. Williams was on MA tour circuit until we went to Amherst and she figured if she didn’t like Amherst because of size/rural-ish location that she wouldn’t care for Williams. I loved Amherst - wish I could go back to college! Thanks for suggestion of going to music major forum.</p>
<p>Shame she doesn’t want to look West. Stanford has a great orchestra and the Bay area has many, many excellent community music ensembles as well.</p>
<p>Quialah - yes, I know about how many great opps. there are in the West - though Stanford is a high reach for everyone. At our HS, for example, nine kids got into Harvard early (and yes about 3 were athletes with lower academic stats then the other top kids at our public school) and only one into Stanford (legacy). It’s a shame schools don’t recruit for musicians, artists, scientists, etc as they do athletes, but that’s a whole other discussion!</p>
<p>I would say that just about every school in the top 50 nationals and top 5 liberal arts colleges (using the US News list for this analysis) have really good orchestras that anybody can join. The ones that I can think of that would be the hardest due for a non-music major to get into are Yale, Boston University, Northwestern (do to audition based music major programs). Tufts/NEC wouldn’t be an issue at Tufts as these students are in most likely in their ensembles at NEC.</p>
<p>The advantage of school like Amherst is that she can join any of the orchestras within the 5 college area if she wants to. </p>
<p>The other thing to consider is attending a college in an area with a great Youth Orchestra. For instance top players at Columbia perform in the NY Youth Symphony, and top players at Stanford and Berkeley perform in the San Francisco Youth Orchestra.</p>
<p>I agree with much of what has been said so far. Yes the concert band at Yale is awesome. We have also heard the concert bands at Williams and Vassar and those are great also. We heard and loved the Vassar orchestra, the Hamilton orchestra and the Wesleyan orchestras. We listened to so many rehearsals and concerts in our visits. It is such a great idea. You really get the ‘feel’ of the music departments by being there. If she decides to double major, a school with only a few distribution requirements like Brown, Amherst, Hamilton or Vassar makes it easier. I hope you will include some of the schools with under 4000 students on your list.</p>