guitarist's mom

I am very surprised at Berklee not being accredited as well. It does trouble me, I must admit. But it is in such good company that maybe I ought not to worry.

violadad

Personally, I would not consider Berklee's lack of standing with NASM as any more or less important than Juilliard, Mannes, MSM, or Rice not being accredited.

They are all extremely well established, and have proven their strenghts many times over. The trick is matching the student to the right overall program.

lorelei2702

Curriculum decisions are made by tenured faculty, and no matter what the guidelines are for accreditation by any professional organization, if the faculty refuses to require a certain number of semesters of theory as opposed to competency in mathematics, writing, languages, etc., that is that. The mission of the school dictates the faculty hires, and those faculty members dictate the curriculum.

librarian377

NYCM -- Peabody is on the list.

BassDad

The full NASM handbook containing all the rules concerning accreditation runs a bit over 200 pages and is available at http://nasm.arts-accredit.org/site/d...2008_2ndEd.pdf for anyone who wants to slog through it. It takes real commitment on the part of the school to conform to all of that, so it is not surprising if some schools simply do not want to put up with the amount of process required to obtain and maintain accreditation.

nycm

Thanks for the correction, librarian 377, I was looking under the "P"'s and didn't see The Peabody Institute further down the list.

tango14

NASM accreditation means more than just curriculum. They also adhere to standards regarding deadlines/acceptances and generally accepted professional behavior in terms of dealing with student acceptance/admission.

S was accepted at Eastman & UNT (both NASM accredited) & the language used was very clear and similar about the May 1 deadline, about not committing to other schools once you had accepted, about informing the other schools, etc. S was also accepted at Berklee (not NASM) and we were very turned off by the letter. No response deadline was given and language implied that if he didn't accept soon, his place might be taken by someone else. When clicking on the link for admitted students, there was a list of #1, #2, #3, etc. steps to follow. #1 was pay deposit. #3 referred to scholarships. The letter had stated that scholarship info would follow 1 week after acceptance (which it did), but the list of steps made it look like you wouldn't receive scholarship info unless you paid deposit first.

We just didn't like the feel of the whole thing, especially when compared to the professionalism of the other two. And the audition experience was very much on a par with the correspondence. We were not impressed.

S chose Eastman anyway which was his top choice.

guitarist's mom

Tango, what instrument does your son play?

-Allmusic-

You probably can't get much more "apples and oranges" than Eastman and Berklee! They are two extremes of the spectrum, at least for jazz, with one being much more standards-based and straight ahead, including two years of classical (Eastman), and one a much bigger program, with completely different emphasis (including no classical).

My son was also accepted at Berklee (he isn't going), but we didn't feel turned off by their letter (which came by Federal Express or something. This was the only one to be delivered this way, which was kind of neat!). The presentation was different than the NASM schools, but I didn't think it unprofessional at all.

There are some absolutely stellar players we know going to Berklee next year, and kids for whom it is a good fit, can certainly find an excellent experience there.

tango14

Guitarist's mom-S plays sax

Allmusic-You are right about "apples and oranges." S was focused on jazz and was open originally to all options. Some great people went to Berklee and he received sales pitch on it from others. But audition confirmed completely in his mind (and ours) that it wasn't for him. He's looking forward with great anticipation to in-depth classical study which is an area he's not nearly as familiar with and current goal is DMA rather than full-time performing career. Of course, we know since he's just starting that that may change!