<p>can a transfer student be admitted??? do you perform and what esle???? how does academics imply??</p>
<p>UCLA should also add a Popular Program for people that are more of a pop person</p>
<p>kathy, the link BassDad gave you in your other thread is probably the best source of information other than calling the music department directly.</p>
<p>As for accepting transfer students, you’ll have to check USC’s general transfer policies, as well as double check with the music department. The Thorton transfer guidelines are here [USC</a> Thornton School of Music : Admission: Transferring to Thornton](<a href=“http://www.usc.edu/schools/music/admission/transfer/index.html#apply]USC”>http://www.usc.edu/schools/music/admission/transfer/index.html#apply). Some of your CC credits will be accepted, others may not. If you are close enough to visit the school, your best bet is to schedule an appointment soon with a MUSIC department admissions person knowledgeable in the program. As a new program, there is not a lot of general background or pool of current students/graduates that can provide input. </p>
<p>Regarding “how does academics apply”: this is a function of the way the curriculum is structured. It is a Bachelor of Arts, not a Bachelor of Music degree, and therefore will have more liberal arts requirements (and less music specific) courses. You can get an idea of the differences by comparing the BA versus BM curriculum of other music disciplines at Thorton. This info is usually found in the undergraduate handbook, and there should be a link off the Thorton pages. A general overview of BA versus BM degrees is here <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/561184-help-understanding-ba-vs-bfa-vs-bm.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/561184-help-understanding-ba-vs-bfa-vs-bm.html</a></p>
<p>Pay attention to all deadline dates. There is a prescreening requirement that must be passed before you are granted an audition, so begin practicing/fine tuning your repetoire for that ASAP. My hope is that you have a qualified instructor/mentor/coach that can help you nail it.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Kathy,</p>
<p>I only know a handleful of classical string players - viola and violin - who have studied at USC. For classical musicians, it is a very select school. Academic standards are high as well as audition standards. I do not know anyone who has transferred there - they entered as freshmen. </p>
<p>The Popular Music porgram is new - the standards aren’t yet established. I would be surprised if they are far different from the admissions standards for the rest of Thornton. </p>
<p>From the USC website, here are academic stats for entering freshmen to USC as a whole. Thornton’s stats may also be available somewhere on their website. Obviously this is freshmen not transfers, but Thornton’s website says that transfer admissions are competitive.</p>
<pre><code> Matriculants Fall Admits Fall Applicants
2,766 7,876 35,901
</code></pre>
<p>Mean GPA (un-weighted, 4.0 scale) 3.7 3.8 3.5
Middle 50% SAT Critical Reading 620 – 720 640 – 730 540 – 680
Middle 50% SAT Math 650 – 740 670 – 760 570 – 710
Middle 50% SAT Writing 640 – 730 650 – 740 560 – 690
Middle 50% SAT composite 1910 – 2190 1960 – 2230 1670 – 2080
Middle 50% ACT composite 28 – 33 29 – 33 24 – 31 </p>
<p>You would be much more likely to get answers to your questions by contacting Thornton directly. Since the Popular Music offering is new, it seems quite reasonable for interested students to have questions that the school can help you with. Most of us here are guessing at the answers to your questions/concerns!</p>
<p>Do not take offense at my next suggestion, the following advice is from an “old person” not used to the grammar and conventions of text messaging and college student e-mail communications. If you do contact Thornton by e-mail, PLEASE use proper capitalization standards, punctuation, grammer, spelling, etc. Frankly, your posts are hard for me to read and do not present you as the literate intelligent student that you undoubtedly are!</p>
<p>Sorry - The spacing I put into the above stats didn’t stay with the post, it’s hard to read. Also, I feel the need to clarify part of my previous post and it’s too late to edit:</p>
<p>“The Popular Music porgram is new - the standards aren’t yet established.”</p>
<p>Obviously, the faculty and administration of the Thornton School has standards in mind for the students they admit to this new program! What I intended to say was that because the program is new, there will not be a standard PROFILE (academic and musical level) of the students accepted. </p>
<p>Kathy, regarding your concern for academics - quite honestly, at this point, there is nothing you can do about your high school GPA. Work hard to get the best grades you can at your community college as you progress. Use the community college opportunity to demonstrate how well you can do! Also, focus hard on the musical aspects of your application - put together a great prescreen and be prepared for a super audition. Work forward to put together the best personal profile of yourself that you can!</p>
<p>Best luck!</p>
<p>I was overwhelmed about the good news that was sjut brought up. Im sorry if i forgot my capitalizations and grammar. It happen’s when your’e excited while typing.</p>
<p>So theres a big difference with BA and BM??? It harder i suppose than BM huh???</p>
<p>The differences between BA and BM are pretty well outlined in the thread link I gave you.</p>
<p>It is not so much a function of being “harder” as it is a function of focus. The BM tends to be the “preferred degree” for those in performance based programs, as it is more “hands-on” than a BA counterpart. </p>
<p>The BA is in effect a liberal arts based degree, with an emphasis in a specific discipline, in your case popular music.</p>
<p>The BM is a professional or technical degree with greater credit requirements in the major field of study, much like a BS degree. This means in general more REQUIRED courses in specific areas of the major such as music theory & history, private instruction, ensemble work, courses using applied knowledge in mastering a skill. Virtually all BMs will require some liberal arts requirements and non-music electives. The amount will be based on school specific parameters.</p>
<p>The best place to get a feel for this is to look at the degree requirements for specific music areas at Thorton.</p>
<p>In a BA program, there is generally a set of core requirements that must be met. USC Thornton’s for the existing BA in music are shown at the bottom of the page at [USC</a> Catalogue: The Schools: USC Thornton School of Music: Undergraduate Degrees](<a href=“http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/cat2008/schools/music/undergraduate.html#humanities]USC”>http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/cat2008/schools/music/undergraduate.html#humanities)</p>
<p>Basically, there are 64 units of core requirements in writing, foreign languages and several other categories that are explained further at [USC</a> Catalogue: The Schools: USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences: General Education Program](<a href=“http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/cat2008/schools/college/gen_ed.html]USC”>http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/cat2008/schools/college/gen_ed.html) and there are 64 units of music courses.</p>
<p>The Popular Music Performance program will almost certainly retain the same core requirements (although they may steer you toward certain classes that can be used to satisfy those requirements), and I expect there will be about 64 units of music courses that are somewhat different from the existing BA in music.</p>
<p>A BM degree in music is usually much heavier on the music classes, with generally 70% to 90% of the course work in music and the rest in a much reduced set of core courses. Many BA programs would have you take only 30% to 40% of the total course work in music, so the USC program gives you more music classes than usual for a BA, but not as many as a BM program would require.</p>
<p>As you have found out, there are not many BM programs in Popular Music Performance and none that I can think of are at a school with as strong an academic reputation as USC. I would imagine that this is not going to be an easy program to get into. Good luck.</p>
<p>i know this might sound redundant… but how much does academics apply when your a vocal major???</p>
<p>is it more hard??? or is it going to focu more on performing rather than academics???</p>
<p>i can still get a BA even though im a transfer, right???.. im not really rushing things cause i really have a long way to go before trying out.. im still a freshman at a CC college that has good transfer rates..im just researching for majors… Who knows, they might open new programs like the Popular Music program someday (in 2 years years when i transfer), and might become more linient…</p>
<p>In a BM program at a stand-alone conservatory, academics would not count for very much. In that case, you would focus mostly on music and not very much on academics.</p>
<p>I am not all that familiar with USC in particular, but grades and test scores generally count for more when the program is a BA, and when the associated college or university is known for very good academics. Both of those apply in this case, so I imagine that there will be some minimum requirements in terms of test scores and GPA, or, if applying as a transfer, the GPA at the college you now attend. After all, you have to take half your classes with the general population at USC and they will only admit people that they think will be able to keep up in those academic classes. Even some of the music classes (theory and history) can be quite academic in nature. If you have really good grades, that is good news for you because it will eliminate that portion of your competition who do not have good grades.</p>
<p>I do not know if the USC program will be open to transfer students initially. You should really contact the music department there to find out before you get your hopes set too high. I very much doubt that USC will need to be lenient with this program because they will probably get lots of applicants who have very good grades and excellent voices. Any school that requires a pre-screening recording (as USC does for this new program) expects to have a lot more applicants than they can audition, let alone admit. It is worst of all for females, because there are probably three to four times as many young women as there are young men applying, and the school usually wants to admit roughly equal numbers of both so that the vocal ensembles are balanced. It is possible that other schools with lower academic standards will follow USC’s lead and start Popular Music Performance programs of their own, but it takes time to get started with a whole new degree curriculum.</p>
<p>well, im not really bad at school but if its compared to voice, im more confident about that. A counsilor form USC had mentioned how important auditions counts a lot more than academics when you transfer…</p>
<p>Im just curious how this is all based… Im not setting my self too high but im using this to motivate myself already. Whats wrong with being happy and concern about a dream major program i want to study, right??? </p>
<p>As i said, its not yet an important concern i have to address immediately. I still have 2 years at a CC before i transfer. things can change, new programs, new hopes and more…</p>
<p>so when you mean BA, you are saying how academics applies more than a BM. But for regular VOCAL ARTS (classical/opera prog) , they are BA as well right??? so i dont think theres BM for vocal arts i guess???</p>
<p>kathy, it’s great that you are planning ahead. There is info on the USC/Thorton site that outlines recommended academic courses that tend to transfer from California cc’s to Thorton. I’d suggest talking to your cc advisor and planning your cc curriculum around those recommendations as much as possible, and do your best to excel academically while there.</p>
<p>I see you are still confused about BA versus BM. Read through the info here [USC</a> Catalogue: The Schools: USC Thornton School of Music: Undergraduate Degrees](<a href=“http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/cat2008/schools/music/undergraduate.html#humanities]USC”>http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/cat2008/schools/music/undergraduate.html#humanities) that BassDad posted earlier. </p>
<p>Thorton’s popular music program at this point is adveritsed as being a BA, and has more academic non music requirements than their BM offerings. Thorton does offer classical voice in a BM variant. Compare the requirements among the different programs and degree types, and you will see patterns of similarities as well as differences.</p>
<p>For classical/operatic voice programs, some schools have a BA program, some have a BM program and some have both. In broad terms, BA programs tend to have from 25% to 50% music courses and the rest non-music. BM programs tend to have from 67% to 90% music courses. Classical voice majors usually have more language requirements (Italian, French and possibly German for two semesters each) than instrumental majors, so they shift more toward the lower end of those ranges in many schools. When both degrees are offered, academics always play a bigger role in the BA program and the admissions requirements usually take that into account. That would be true whether we are talking about classical vocal performance, popular music performance or anything else.</p>
<p>Almost all of USC Thornton’s undergrad degree programs are the BM variety. See [USC</a> Catalogue: Undergraduate Education: Undergraduate Degree Programs : Degree Programs](<a href=“http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/cat2008/undergraduate/degree_programs_list.html]USC”>http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/cat2008/undergraduate/degree_programs_list.html) toward the bottom for a list. For a BM program, I would certainly believe what that USC counselor said about the audition being the most important consideration. For a BA program, that may still be true, but you may also find that they give academics more consideration than they do in their BM programs. The best way to find out for sure is to call them and ask very specific questions.</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with using this as motivation, aiming high or having dreams. My own daughter did all of the above with a school that she ultimately did not get into, yet was very happy with where she wound up. I have obviously never heard you sing and the USC program is very new so I have no way of knowing whether your chances are excellent, terrible or somewhere in between. I am not trying to discourage you, but think you should get some facts about the program before you become so excited that you cannot type straight. Calling it your dream program based on one web page about a curriculum that has not been fully defined may be premature, but then again I am the cautious type when it comes to such things.</p>
<p>" Im not setting my self too high but im using this to motivate myself already. Whats wrong with being happy and concern about a dream major program i want to study, right??? "
Kathy—we all understand your motivation and excitement. But you really need to set aside the excitement and passion when approaching these intensive (and expensive) programs and look at them in a dispassionate,cool and focused manner. For example, even though your community college may have an excellent record as far as transfering credit over to USC or UCLA in general, that record may not be consistent when transferring to a music program. None of us here at CC can answer what will or will not transfer. There are plenty of specific issues that have been mentioned by bassdad, violadad and fiddlestix. Write down each issue and discuss these first with your current voice teacher, then a counseler at your school with experience in music admissions and finally with the admissions people at the music schools you are applying to. Good luck!</p>