<p>I was involved in a discussion the other day with some other parents whose kids attend music schools. I mentioned that in talking with my son who is a second year at Crane (SUNY Potsdam) my wife and I have come up with about a 15% attrition rate in my son’s class overall not studio specific (these are the students he knows himself, not some solid list printed somewhere). A parent of another musician in my son’s studio who is now a junior also figured about 20% for his class. Since both obviously only know so many I assume a total rate somewhere between 15 - 25%. Each Crane class is about 150 when they start.</p>
<p>Anyone have any idea of the attrition rate in you DS or DD school ?</p>
<p>By attrition rate, do you mean the number of students who typically do not return from one year to the next or do you mean the number who do not graduate within some number of years?</p>
<p>Those who drop out of the music school, not return from one year to the next.</p>
<p>Many schools publish their overall second year return rates, but I am not aware of any that break it down by department, at least for public consumption. One exception to that is Oberlin, where my daughter went, because they have two completely separate divisions - the College and Conservatory. Even there, they do not make the number easy to get. </p>
<p>The following numbers come from the Electronic Data Book at [Institutional</a> Research](<a href=“http://oberlin.edu/instres/irhome/]Institutional”>http://oberlin.edu/instres/irhome/)
The analysis is mine.</p>
<p>In 2009, there were 577 undergrads in the Con and in 2010 there were 574. They graduated 106, enrolled 119 freshmen and transferred in 9 to later years. Subtracting 106 from 577 and then adding in 119 and 9 gives 599 so they must have lost a total of 25 students in other ways. That computes to about 4.3% overall. The numbers are not broken down by individual class year, so it is impossible to tell how many years those who did not return had already completed. The attrition rate is usually higher between first and second years than in later years, so I think a reasonable estimate of their freshman-to-sophomore year attrition rate in the Conservatory would be around 10%. </p>
<p>About one in four Conservatory students are in the double degree program. If they decided to drop the music degree while remaining at Oberlin College, they would show up in the Conservatory attrition rate, but not in the combined College and Conservatory attrition rate. This would put the rate of those who leave the Conservatory between first and second year who are not counted in the overall College numbers at something like 7% to 8%, which is pretty consistent with the published overall second year return rate of 94% for the College and Con combined.</p>