yea my son went in gung ho about double majoring…very very hard. 5 year plan is a good idea!
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Northwestern used to have mean SAT by schools available on its website. At that time, the mean for music school was about 80 points lower than the university average. It appears to me the music school has to want you first and then submit its recommendations to the undergrad admission which has the final say. The recommendation serves as a strong hook but not a guarantee. I imagine the undergrad adcom probably put aside all the music school applicants and wait for the recommendation from music school before they begin their full review.
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My son applied to many audition based schools as well as a few schools that seem to have robust music programs but do not require an audition. One of those schools is Washington University in St Louis, where he woud intend to study music with a concentration in jazz performance. On paper it seems like a strong program in terms of course offerings and ensembles. Would appreciate any insight into the strength of the music program and the talent level of the students that participate. Thanks!
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@lkbux64 my D graduated from Wash U (Sam Fox School). It’a wonderful school - lots of resources and friendly go-getter-impressive kids. Not sure about the music program though. It has a low profile on campus. I remember one of my S’s musician friends considered it but didn’t think there was enough music happening on campus.
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Thanks for the feedback @drummergirl. Wash U looks like a great school and is one of the few non-music schools with really strong academics that offers a BM in music. My son is concerned that the level if musicianship won’t be as strong as he would like given that you don’t have to audition into the program.
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@lkbux64 it really is a great school and my D loved the St Louis area too. I think it’s definitely worth a visit to see for yourself. Wash U is a perfect size - not too small, not too large and there’s an authentic emphasis on community service. The kids go on to do interesting things!
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My perspective on Northwestern was just from our music school tour, which was given by the Dean of aadmissions. My son has the stats technically for NW but we know a lot of kids with higher test scores or class rank that were denied so he wanted to know if you had to be accepted to the university first and then music school or vice verse. Elite university admissions have really become like lottery tickets in my opinion. I don’t know if they get any info on grades and test scores before offering auditions. The Bienen application does not ask for grades or test scores so the question is, when does undergrad admissions get involved?
This is an old thread but gives some information.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/656219-northwestern-flute-audition-unfair-p1.html
It seems that there are a lot of variables and the music school can appeal a rejection but if you are truly out of the range there isn’t much that can be done. Have no idea in 2019 what is considered dead fo NU but it seems to be higher and higher every year.
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@lkbux64 I am a Wash U alum so my experience is from nearly 30 years ago, so things may have changed significantly (though Drummergirl’s “low profile” comment makes me think it hasn’t changed that much). I absolutely loved my time at Wash U, so I’ll get that out of the way first. I was a shy, introverted HS kid and I totally bloomed there. Wonderful place with talented, nice, down to earth students, I did not want to leave after my 4 years were up! I had been in band and choir in HS so I continued to participate in music at Wash U and took private lessons (with a grad student), but not as a music major.
That said, music was certainly not a big thing on campus at that time, none of my friends participated in music, and despite my participation in ensembles I did not personally know any music majors. It’s possible some in the ensembles were music majors but that I was not aware of it. At the time, music was housed in a not so great building on the edge of campus so a bit removed from the main drag. The ensembles at the time were about at the level of my HS ensembles (I went to a good public school in a not terribly competitive Midwestern state), so decent, but nowhere near the level that my son had in high school in a highly competitive metro area with excellent music programs and a high density of terrific private teachers.
Like I said, it has been a long time, so my info may be very out of date.
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Thank you @classicalsaxmom! You are voicing what my son and I suspected.
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I looked at the Washington U.website and it looks fantastic. The BM comes with different options: Composition,
History & Culture,
Performance, and
Theory.
This is unusual for an undergrad program. (Composition is a special focus apparently). Then there is also the Bachelor or Arts in Music with the possibility of double major with some other subject. There is good intermingling of BM and BA and non-majors in classes, which is great. Sometimes the presence of a BM degree program diminishes things for the BA students. There are opportunities to minor in
jazz studies and
classical music.
Non majors can take lessons and perform in ensembles. So much flexibility!
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@compmom — I know, it sounds GREAT on paper! My son visited last April and connected with the head if the jazz program and really liked him and they have stayed in touch. He sat in on a jazz theory class and liked that too. He wants to find out how involved the students are. But, looking at the course offerings, you would think there’s enough interest or those classes wouldn’t run.
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Curious if the reality matches what is on paper. It would seem there must be a number of involved students to support all those options. I wonder if you will be able to go to a concert to assess quality.
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Our data point… My D considered WashU in 2014 for dual degree and did a lesson with the horn prof at the time. The prof told her that while she would love to have my D as a student, she thought my D would be better off at one of the other programs she was considering (Peabody/JHU, Michigan, CMU, etc) because of the lower ensemble quality at WashU. She told my D that the ensembles would be weaker than what she was used to at her city youth orchestra, and that the prof would seek chamber and external opportunities to supplement my D’s performance experiences. My D ended up at Michigan.
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Thank you @MomOf2TeenGirls, that’s really helpful. And it’s good to hear that the prof was up front with your D. Did your D end up doing dual degree at Michigan? My son has been admitted into LSA and is auditioning at SMTD on a couple of weeks.
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We looked at a number of strong academic schools for S18 which were not known for music, always hoping we would find an overlooked diamond where he could get great VP training and still explore other subjects. We never found one. The comment from the Wash U post was apt: “At the time, music was housed in a not so great building on the edge of campus so a bit removed from the main drag.” We found location and music facilities to be indicative. For example, at Emory the music building was on the edge of campus, worn, and frankly: lifeless. Too many of these programs existed solely to let STEM kids keep taking lessons on their way to med school or Microsoft. Nothing wrong with that, but not the place for the serious music student.
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I totally agree with vistajay. How do yo guys do the @ thing to reference specific people. This is the first board I have ever posted in. My S felt the exact same way about Emory. The building was kinda remote and run down. Weirdly he felt that way about Blair as well. It’s kind of separated from the main campus by the medical complex. It was lively but after meeting with staff there, they told my S flat out that he should expect to spend st least 80% of time in the bldg (which was sort of a depressing concrete 70s building). They really seem to discourage much involvement with the rest of the campus.
On a positive note we felt Williams, if you have the academic stats, had an awesome and active music community. It’s near Tanglewood and they put on a lot of performances. Northeastern basically shares a wall with NEC and you can get a performance certificate and take classes there. And Tufts, in addition to their Dual Degree with NEC has a pretty active music scene on their Medford campus as well.
@DVmom18 and @vistajay – helpful feedback, thank you! In addition to Wash U, my S has applications in at Emory, Vanderbilt and Williams. S met with the head of the jazz program at Emory (Gary Motley) and was impressed, but I agree with your points about the music building being on the outskirts of campus which, to be honest, we didn’t really focus on when we visited last April. His Vanderbilt application does not include Blair, however, as they do not have a jazz program, which puts Vandy towards the bottom of his list. Great to hear about Williams! S does have the academic stats to make admission a possibility, but given how competitive it is to get in, we view Williams as a long shot.
As for how to @ people, @DVmom18, just type the “@” symbol and the first few letters and you will see names start to popup for you to click on.
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@DVmom18 , just type @ and then type in the user name and it will come up in a pop up box and you click on it.
Re: Williams and Tanglewood, the only way you’re going to see a Tanglewood performance while at Williams (except maybe during freshman orientation in August) is if you’re on campus for summer school, as Tanglewood is a summer only proposition.
Solid undergraduate training can be found outside of BM degrees, especially if the school is in a major metropolitan area, but it requires more effort and determination and probably commuting time from the student. There are definitely fine teachers teaching at liberal arts colleges, and students who study with them often go on to fine graduate schools (as an example, we know of a Vassar undergrad currently doing a Masters at Eastman). That said, what I was able to glean from talking to as many people as I could when my D was weighing options on both sides of the BM/BA divide, is that all of the students who took the path of continuing training “on their own” while in an academic BA said it took much more focus, effort, time and personal responsibility on their own parts. Some felt “behind” in grad school, others not so much, I think at that point it’s very specific to the student’s whole range of experiences. I’d think those scenarios would be fairly different for undergrad singers vs instrumentalists as well. YMMV.
What a BM degree does offer is the freedom to include the huge amounts of work you’re putting into developing as a performer into your curriculum/degree, rather than being in a scenario where you’re loading it on top of a presumably also fairly demanding academic degree. That’s different from pursuing a dual degree at a university music school, because in the dual degree scenario it’s much easier to change your mind and go wholly in a direction you didn’t know was the one you really wanted when you arrived (without transferring).
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@DVmom18 We had the same impression about our audition visit to Blair - loved the voice prof and the students were super nice, but the building was really far away from the main campus and pretty far away from the Freshman dorms, too. On the other hand - lots of exercise if you are going to be stuck in the music building a lot, and the newer dorms/food choices we saw were fabulous. 
It’s great to be thinking about what aspects will make the upcoming transition the best for your student. For us, we weren’t a fan of practice rooms being open 24/7, we heard that mentioned at a few of the music schools.