<p>S took a couple of years off after college to become a fluent French speaker... lived in Paris for a year and then Quebec for another year (no jokes, please)</p>
<p>Now he's mentally and financially ready to move forward and pursue a master's degree in violin performance.</p>
<p>It's still 8 months away, but he has "narrowed" his list of schools down to these:</p>
<p>(1) IU (Bloomington, IN)
(2) CCM (Cincinnati, OH)
(3) CIM (Cleveland, OH)
(3) Northwestern (Evanston, IL)
(4) Manhattan (New York City)
(5) SFCM (San Francisco)
(6) USC (Los Angeles)
(?) Rice (only listed it because there's a slight chance)</p>
<p>1/2/3 are in "small/medium" cities with not much going on culturally/musically, when compared directly to 4/5/6 which are in large cities. (i.e. frequent concerts by world class classical musicians and orchestras) </p>
<p>What do you folks think of those six school. I have no idea what those schools are like these days. My son's last two teachers/professors said he should have no problem getting into any one of those six schools.(but they made that comment more than a year ago)</p>
<p>His ultimate goal is to get a DMA or some kind of advanced performance certificate. (sounds kind of unrealistic to me right now, but who knows :) ) This may be an important factor in deciding which school to go for a master's degree? I don't know... but can't hurt, right?</p>
<p>Like I said, it's still early.... so I would appreciate any comments. Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Of the schools you have listed I would say Rice has the highest level violin program because of the teachers they have there now and the selective nature of the school. Being in a big city is nice especially at the graduate level because there are a lot of connections that can be made through the professors and the schools. For example I know that some of the doctoral students at USC get asked to fill in with the LA Philharmonic occasionally. Just something to consider.</p>
<p>may I ask where your S went to undergrad? It sounds like you may not know much about CIM. The Cleveland Orchestra is considered one of the best in the world. Actually they are ranked higher than NY, SF, and LA orchestras to most people. This is an amazing resource for students at CIM. The violin level at CIM is also very high: they have Bill Preucil, Joel Smirnoff, and now Jaime Laredo on their faculty. Id say CIM and Rice are the hardest to get into on your list</p>
<p>Are master/doctor degrees in music from those 6 schools considered “prestige” schools diplomas? (i.e. proudly displayed on the top of resumes, or framed/hung in offices/studios )</p>
<p>I do realize that none of them are “equal” to a degree from Julliard… but still nothing to sneeze at, right? </p>
<p>They are certainly ‘prestige’ schools, and I’d be willing to bet that there are reasonably large numbers of students at all of these schools that are on par or better than the average Juilliard grad. It’s just another great music school: big, old, and the best connections in the business, but still just another school. Curtis, on the other hand…</p>
<p>It would be difficult to rank these schools. All of them have at least a few excellent students and at least one well-known teacher. It might be easier to rank individual teacher studios in terms of the calibre of students and the competitiveness of admission, but that would not be very helpful, since the top studio might be a very bad fit for a particular violinist.</p>
<p>IU is the largest of them and has the most violin profs. The calibre of the students and profs probably has a larger range at IU than at most others, simply because of its size. While Bloomington is certainly by far the smallest of the cities you’ve mentioned (and had a distinctly hillbilly feel to parts of it which was shocking to my Canadian sensibilities), IU has vast amounts of cultural stuff happening right on campus and Indianapolis is only about 75 minutes away (although it is not a cultural hotbed compared to most of the cities on your list).</p>
<p>I hear less about CCM’s violinists than the other schools, but certainly there are fine students there.</p>
<p>Is there a reason why NEC is not on the list? In my mind, for violin, it is the equal or better of most of the schools on the list, but no more competitive for admissions than at least one or two.</p>
<p>@californiaharp- It sounds like time to go back to the beginning and look at things as they are now. If your S has been out of the US for an extended period he could be out of touch with who is teaching where, etc.<br>
Building upon what dominant7 said, the Cleveland Orchestra is ranked among the best in the world and has “world class” soloists playing with them every week,and throughout the summer season at the Blossom Festival, so to say that there is “not much going on culturally/musically” in the city is ridiculous. Students from CIM do sub with the orchestra occasionally when a member is out for some reason, so the importance of those contacts can not be overlooked.
Also, it’s not true to say that “none of them are equal to a degree from Julliard”. When the time comes to audition for a seat in a good orchestra, no one is going to ask to see your son’s diploma so that they can “rank” it. They want to hear him play and having the right teacher will help to open doors. I can’t think why he’d want to hang his diploma on the wall- most musicians don’t place too much stock in that- and again, his playing ability is what is going to get him a job, and that job is what is going to determine what goes on his professional resume. He needs to do more research, visit schools and set up sample lessons and determine where he will be the most comfortable and not rely on information that might be out of date or not accurate.</p>
<p>The level at SFCM is definitely substantially lower than at the other listed schools.
I think you’re quite mistaken about the level of musical activity in Cleveland. Not only is there the Cleveland Orchestra, there are also excellent smaller groups – CityMusic, Apollo’s Fire, etc – plus several good regional orchestras nearby. Between CIM and Oberlin the number of strong young musicians in the area is significant. It will be interesting to see how CIM develops post-Kantor with Zenaty and Laredo around.
Rice is great, but very, very orchestra-centric (though that may become somewhat less true with Kantor there). If that doesn’t appeal, the chamber music-heavy curricula at CIM and NEC might make more sense.</p>
<p>I can tell you for a fact that the balance at Rice between orchestra and chamber/soloists is becoming much more even in recent years. Paul Kantor joining the faculty is just more evidence that that is where things are headed. Is the orchestra still freaking awesome? As always! But there is LOTS of chamber music going on now.</p>
<p>operaluvr, i was speaking from (extremely) recent personal experience …
a more even balance than previously, perhaps; i wouldn’t really know, as i was there for only two years. however, it’s still a community in which a master’s candidate in strings who does not aspire to an orchestra job is something of an odd duck, and will find a relatively small pool of players with other ideas around. also, the requirement of four semesters of excerpt class sort of hammers in the institutional priority on orchestra.
this is not to say that it is not possible to have a wonderful experience at Rice as a string player with aspirations outside orchestra. that said, it is not really for everyone, and indeed was not right for me.</p>
<p>The reason why I thought of Yale was because you mentioned your son may be interested in seeking his DMA. Yale has a program that leads to an MMA in performance and then directly into the DMA performance program, both with a full tuition fellowship and small stipend. Yale has a bit more of a academic bent than most of the performance graduate programs but that would serve to be a benefit should your son want to teach at the university or conservatory level.</p>
<p>Just to give you an example of what I am saying about Rice doing increasingly more and more chamber music, here is an article about the school doing a new annual chamber music concert series. They have just finished a multi-million dollar performance space in which these concerts will take place. [Shepherd</a> School of Music - Houston, TX - NEWS AT THE SHEPHERD SCHOOL OF MUSIC](<a href=“http://music.rice.edu/news/050712.shtml]Shepherd”>http://music.rice.edu/news/050712.shtml)</p>
<p>I am confused with which school I should go this fall for my master degree. I am violin student, I have received offer from CIM CCM Mannes. CIM and CCM which is better? I didn’t receive scholarship from CCM >-< AND just A litter from CIM. i AM SAD…</p>
<p>A lot of those schools mentioned have a huge presence on the web and many broadcast performances of their orchestras and chamber groups. I think CIM has one tonight. You can also see faculty performances and master classes, etc. Nothing beats listening to the final product - the proof of the pudding , so to speak. While shopping undergrad we caught some really great performances, and they were free.</p>
<p>carinaXU, congratulations on your acceptances. Did you have an opportunity to take a sample lesson with any of the teachers at those schools? All three should have some very good teachers, so if you have a decent offer from Mannes that could be a perfectly fine choice. Note that the cost of living in or near NYC is going to be a fair amount higher than living in Ohio for one of the others, so factor that in when comparing costs.</p>
<p>I’m not so happy to read that at least in one person’s opinion, the level of student at San Francisco Conservatory is not as good as in many of the other schools. I’d like to know how you know this is true, and why this might be? And is that statement referring to undergrads, or also the grad students?</p>
<p>My daughter is looking at some of the same schools. Her choice is now between Peabody, SFCM and CCM for violin undergrad. Each has strong points. I don’t see how SFCM is considered weaker. It has excellent teachers and being the only music school in a cultural center with lots of money (silicon valley) can’t hurt in the long run. In the past ten years it has built a new building for itself and now makes dorm space available for students, (though students must cook their own meals) which wasn’t the case even a few years ago. It seems to have come a long way. CCM is strong historically but is associated with a a state university which appears to be seeing some tight times financially. I think I read somewhere though that after Julliard, NEC, Eastman, Indiana, Oberlin and a couple of others that more big city symphony violinists have a CCM background than any other school. Perhaps CIM is high on that list as well. The CCM grounds on campus are absolutely beautiful. True that CCM is more known for voice and musical theatre but it is not weak in strings from my observation at auditions. I don’t know much about CIM teachers. One worry I would have about all the campuses, CIM, SFCM, Peabody and CIM (I hear) is that the surrounding neighborhoods are somewhat dicey. In our case, Peabody is somewhat an issue because it gave no scholarships whereas SFCM and CCM did give some scholarships and aid of some sort of help is crucial for us. Any other word on these schools would help.</p>
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