<p>I think I can safely safe that you all are smart. I want you to compare three colleges for me. IU,Depauw, and Oberlin. Take everything you can into consideration and come up with one you think is the best out of all three. Thanks.</p>
<p>That is too broad of a question. Since you are posting this on the music major thread, can we assume you are interested in these schools for music performance? What instrument? IU is a large state university with perhaps the top music school in the country. Oberlin also has a music conservatory within the confines of a strong liberal arts college. It is on the liberal side. Depauw has a strong music program and decent academics, but it is not a powerhouse. Indiana has great athletics and a top business school. Oberlin is in the middle of a cornfield, but not far from Cleveland. IU is in a perfect college town, about an hour from Indianapolis. it is a great campus. I have never been to Depauw.</p>
<p>Nick,</p>
<p>I seem to recall that you are interested in becoming a voice major. IU and Oberlin both have excellent vocal programs, among the top in the country. Depauw is very good but, I think, a notch below the other two in that respect. IU and Oberlin are very different places. While it is not impossible to love both, a lot of people have a preference one way or the other.</p>
<p>While not quite in the middle of a cornfield (every time someone says that, I think of the movie Field of Dreams), Oberlin is in an otherwise sleepy small town of about 8000. There are several restaurants, a movie theater ($3 admission, $2 some nights), a bar, a couple of banks, a hardware store, etc within a two-square-block "downtown" area adjacent to campus. You will not find a Starbucks or a Borders. Cleveland is close, but you'd better have a car if you want to stay past about 7 PM when the last bus leaves. As MoWC points out in a noteworthy example of understatement, it is on the liberal side. If you are a tree-hugging vegan with an instinctive dislike of all things Republican, you will find a lot of company there. It is the kind of place where they not only tolerate alternative lifestyles, they invent new ones. There are currently about 600 students in the Conservatory, about 100 of whom are voice majors. They have announced plans to cut overall conservatory enrollment to closer to 500. The college has some excellent offerings if you are interested in academics, but cannot match the breadth of courses offered by a larger state U. Oberlin is undergrad-only and has an extensive double degree program in which about a quarter of the conservatory students participate. My daughter is a double bass/math major there and the school seems to have been designed with her in mind.</p>
<p>IU is a model state U with 35000+ students in a large town / small city of about 70,000. The music school alone is over 1600 students. While you will find people of all political persuasions in a group that large, on average they are a more conservative lot than Oberlin. In general there is more of everything at IU, which has obvious advantages but also makes it a bit easier to get lost in the crowd. The daughter of a friend of ours is a vocal major there and she absolutely loves the place.</p>
<p>Nick- my D is a vocal performance major at Rice. She chose it over Oberlin, IU and a number of other fine schools. It is a small, conservatory-level program with lots of performance opportunities for undergraduates.</p>
<p>So would you recieve more attention at these smaller schools?</p>
<p>Would you get more performance opportunites at the bigger schools?</p>
<p>You actually get more performance opportunities at the schools with smaller programs.</p>
<p>I think it can vary. There are more groups to perform in at bigger schools, but there are, of course, more students trying to get into them. One advantage of a bigger school, however, if that there are so many opportunities to be exposed to good music, as well as taking part in it. My son chose IU (instrumental major) for its strong program, but also because there is always something musical going on, pretty much seven days a week, so he can soak himself in musical experiences.</p>
<p>Please take this is for what it is...heresay.. But my son has two friends who now attend Oberlin, and they have admitted to him that if you are not into contemporary/new music and very liberal, don't even think about going there.</p>
<p>Nick:</p>
<p>We visited both Oberlin and DePauw during our search for the school where my daughter would study vocal performance. BassDad catured the essence of Oberlin in his post. I would characterize DePauw as the polar opposite of Oberlin in terms of political climate -- ultra conservative. If my memory serves me, Dan Quayle is a graduate. Greencastle, Indiana is truly in the middle of nowhere. Oberlin's campus is at least adjacent to a charming town. My daughter could not get out of Greencastle quickly enough. We scratched DePauw from our list early in the process. Nevertheless, I have heard that the music program is very good, but certainly not in the same league as Oberlin and IU.</p>
<p>Is Rice U and Westminster C C in the same league as Oberlin and IU?</p>
<p>Rice is geared more toward grad students. I don't know anything about Westminster. Oberlin is a top school, as is Indiana. You should start your search with in-state schools and branch out from there. If you are a voice major, then research where the top voice teachers are. Narrow your search down by region, be realistic about your chance of admission, and, of course, cost of attendance. There are many great schools across the country. Don't forget that if you find an undergrad program with a great teacher who can prepare you, then shoot for a top grad school. Voice is different from instrumental, anyway... you reach your peak alot later. Good luck!</p>
<p>Rice, Westminster, Oberlin and IU are all top programs for voice.</p>
<p>violinmom- I disagree about Rice. The undergraduate music program is phenomenal. My daughter chose it over many other top programs. She is now a junior, and had a lead role in an opera last fall. She did her junior recital this past Monday night. It is an extremely selective program and not large, but the undergraduates are at least as much a focus as the graduate program.</p>
<p>MomofWildChild, for orchestral instruments, the level of the grad students at Rice is much higher than for undergrad, because of Rice's unusual and extremely successful orchestra-track MM option, and because of the excellent funding they offer to grad students.
That doesn't apply to voice students, obviously.</p>
<p>Rice is EXTREMELY competitive on the undergrad level. They only have room for about 30 freshman each year across all instruments and voice. That means that on any one instrument, they are only going to take a few students each year, and on some instruments, they may only take one. There are twice as many grad students as undergrads at Shepard.</p>
<p>However, the undergraduates at Rice get incredible performance opportunities. My daughter had a lead role in the fall opera this year (as a junior). The girl who won the string competition is a sophomore. When my daughter was a freshman she was a little intimidated by the graduate students (she called them "the scarey graduate students", but by sophomore year she was used to them and learned a lot from them.</p>
<p>i HIGHLY suggest northwestern univ. being added to your list. highly. feel free to contact me with any questions.</p>