<p>One issue you might investigate at each college: what are the musical opportunities for non-music majors. If your daughter decides to major in something else, but still wants to keep up a high level of musicianship, play in ensembles or orchestras, take lessons, can she do that?</p>
<p>As people have pointed out, schools with conservatories, like Yale, tend to fill their orchestras with grad students. When we visited Northwestern, which is better known for music than U of Chicago, we learned from students that it could be difficult to get into some music classes if you were not in the music college, even though the university presentation made it sound as if it were easy. In some places, there may be one orchestra that requires auditions, and even a talented undergrad may not get a chance to play. Other places, not known for music, may not attract a lot of top level players, which presents the opposite problem. </p>
<p>My S chose Columbia on this basis. I’m not saying it would necessarily work for your daughter, because he plays a different type of music, but he picked it partly because he can be in ensembles, take music classes, and even get individual lessons from faculty at no extra cost without being a music major. On the other hand, at UCLA, he would not have had that kind of access without being in the College of Arts and Architecture, which makes it very difficult to major in subjects that are in L and S, though you can still take courses. (If your daughter wants to go that route, my daughter was an art major at UCLA and had a good experience, with small art classes, but access to history and language classes and the education abroad program. But it would have been very difficult for her to do a second major outside the College of Arts and Architecture.)</p>
<p>Someone mentioned Lawrence, which I know is set up to allow students to double major. I wonder about Williams. It was too rural for our kid, but I think I’ve heard it is good in music. MIT, as someone said, has a ton of musical offerings.</p>