<p>myau,
Suggest you look at Dartmouth. It is not quite as competetive for admission as H,P,Y,MIT, but because the emphasis of Dartmouth is on undergraduate education, students there receive a fabulous, well rounded undergraduate education, their language program is superb, with many opportunities for overseas immersion study, their music program is top notch for a non-conservatory program, and there are about 30 Steinway grands in the music practice rooms . The only downside [ at least in our son’s view] is the isolation of the campus in NH. He had a very hard time turning them down last year.</p>
<p>myau,
re:Brown- virtually non existant music dept. At accepted student day Son spent 2 minutes in the music building and said- seen enough, let’s go see Dartmouthre: workload at Chicago- your daughter is taking AP classes in math and science, right? Some of those classes, with high enough AP scores[ 4-5] will be accepted for credit and may allow her to place put of some classes- see below
<a href=“http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/pdf_07/exam-credit.pdf[/url]”>http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/pdf_07/exam-credit.pdf</a></p>
<p>menloparkmom, thanks, I’ll tell her about Brown. 
As to Dartmouth, she is somewhat interested in it and somewhat turned away by it’s isolation, too. Also, I have heard (and read here on CC) some contradictory information on musical quality at Dartmouth. But we’ll look into it.</p>
<p>About APs - she takes AP Calc BC this year and will do AP Statistic next year. She is not sure about AP sciences yet (takes Chem honors now) - somehow, at her school the science teachers are not known as particularly good ones, but the workload is insane. :-(</p>
<p>What is your S going to study at UofC? Will it be music-related?</p>
<p>Re Dartmouth music, albeit second hand:</p>
<p>A friend’s daughter went there as a violist, not a performance major, but hoping for plenty of ensemble and high level orchestra play, which Dartmouth had promised they offered. After playing in top youth orchestras in high school, she found both the level of play and instruction disappointing, and comes back to Boston for her lessons once a week and an ensemble.</p>
<p>Don’t know anyone else’s experience, and others may have more positive ones to report.</p>
<p>I will repeat my recommendation to visit and listen to performance groups. Just because the school is an Ivy or very elite does not mean the music opportunities will be acceptable. My D decided that if she was accepted by an ivy she would give up music, at least in college. Other students may have a different music background and different expectations and may find the opportunies acceptable.</p>
<p>My D spent 1 1/2 years as a high school student playing in the undergrad orchestra for the local State U. Two of her friends who were very average high school musicians were also welcomed into this orchestra. This State U is very large and has an undergrad music program and a strong grad level program. The undergrad orchestra was quite bad. My D enjoyed the first year, mainly because she went with friends. The second year she dropped out and could no longer tolerate playing with musicians at that level.</p>
<p>If you listen to college performance groups, you will hear huge differences. I would be cautious about trying to rank conservatories by listening to a couple of performances. Conservatories will have different levels of performance groups and students at different stages of development. The performances are part of the learning experience and often there are minimal rehearsals before moving on to new music.</p>
<p>To echo edad, we were told by one wise summer music camp director that the big difference between the orchestra experience in a top ivy (or other LA college) vs orchestra experience at a conservatory is that most of the other players at non-conservatory schools are at their best the beginning of their freshman year, whereas in conservatories they will be pushed to improve throughout their 4 years. Not true of everyone, of course, but the sense of the peer-group dedication and focus will certainly be different. In our family S at Ivy is thrilled to keep up his music by playing in a really good ensemble that performs a few times a year while he majors in physics; D at Conservatory is thrilled to take some liberal arts courses while she is pushed to prepare new music and perform several times each term. Bottom line: how does your child really want to spend the four years of college? Admittedly, a pretty tough question… S knew he didn’t want to spend it in practice rooms, even though he did want to keep playing. D knew she’d be happy practicing, but didn’t want to completely give up other interests.</p>
<p>and I would also add that the students who have been accepted into top conservatories are very likely to be starting college at a much higher level than the music major graduates at our local State U.</p>
<p>Re: Yale…they have some of the best undergrad ensembles in the country even though they do NOT offer a music performance major undergrad. They do, however, offer a Bachelor of Arts in Music. Undergrad students who wish to pursue private study usually do so with the graduate students in Yale’s VERY highly regarded graduate program in performance.</p>
<p>At many of these schools, like Yale, the quality of the ensembles depends on the particular mix of students that year – they are not recruited to be performers, as are students in a conservatory. There are many very talented musicians who go to Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Brown (a top drummer from my kid’s high school, conservatory material, chose Brown and is enjoying it but goes to NEC for lessons; Brown also has a very good undergraduate musicology program) – but as discussed above, most have decided that they will not be performers and do not spend their summers at festivals, etc., so their time commitments will be far less. The orchestra at Stanford, by the way, is mediocre; the Cal orchestra is quite good by comparison. But neither can match the quality of the SFS Youth Orchestra, which will accept students from both schools until they are 21. Stanford has a resident string quartet (St. Lawrence); so does Chicago (8th Blackbird), so the coaching would be good for ensembles. Both also have terrific musicology programs. Stanford has music history and theory but no ethnomusicology and no performance major (they used to have one, but eliminated it several years ago on the basis that it wasn’t good enough to continue offering it); Chicago has very good ethnomusicology and theory, as well as historical musicology. The tenured music faculties at these schools don’t involve themselves in the performance options. Unfortunately many musicologists don’t think highly of performers as colleagues…and vice versa.</p>
<p>Myau,
Son is currently at USC, which he accepted because of the full tuition scholarship they offered, but he is applying to transfer to U of C this next year. He will be studying Geophysics and Music[ minor].<br>
Keep in mind that Yale, Princeton, Harvard and all of the Ivy’s are going to be a reach for any student, no matter how qualified [ unless they are a double legacy, recruited athete, developement student, national award winner- you get the idea] because of the sheer numbers of highly qualified students applying. H,P,Y accept less than 10% of those applying. Have her apply to Ivy’s if she wants to, but have some safeties as well. You should read the CC thread by Andi titled “picking up the pieces…” from 2 years ago, about her extremely talented musical son who was rejected or waitlisted at every college [all IVY’s and reaches] he applied to.</p>
<p>menloparkmom, I remember that Andi’s story. 
Yea, I know about Ivies (actually, my D or me are not even sure whether it makes sense to apply there at all (waste of app fee ;-)), not being a legacy or athelete, or super-award winner … and being the middle class family, therefore not counting much for the substantial finaid … if she will apply, that would be mostly " just for the heck of it", to try her luck in the lottery ;-)).</p>
<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>
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<p>Yale’s music performance major is a grad major. The students in THAT grad program comprise their grad orchestra. For undergrads there are many opportunities both instrumental and vocal for students regardless of major. Many require an audition. The most select absolutely require an audition. There are NO music performance majors in the undergrad orchestras at Yale because there are no undergrad music performance majors. Many students, however, participate in the music offerings at Yale where these are quite a great tradition.</p>
<p>It is true that you should ask about opportunities for non-majors. DD is a non-major who is continuing to study oboe/English horn, and this was a priority when choosing schools. She is at Santa Clara University where she will minor in music, but major in some science related field. She is able to take private lessons and play in the orchestra (no charge for lessons for anyone, but if you minor in music your lesson is a longer one each week). The orchestra is fun for her, but not the caliber of her youth orchestra at the Hartt School. However, music is something that she enjoys, and it relaxes her. She did have to ask the question at every school we visited, however. She was surprised at the number of places where the answer to “can I play as a non-major?” was NO. Some schools do not have large enough student bodies for all campus ensembles for non-majors. Duquesne, for example, offers ensemble playing to only music majors (except for the pep band). Boston University has ensembles for the music majors only, and also all campus ensembles for others who want to continue playing (music majors sometimes “job in” when they have an instrument shortage). The Phili LACs have a fine orchestra that I believe rehearses at Swarthmore and is comprised of students from Haverford, and the other schools in that consortium. We found that the heads of the music department were more helpful than the general admissions folks in answering these questions. I will say that I do agree with an earlier poster…don’t expect that the college ensemble that has a ton of non-majors will be the highest quality. It just won’t be. These kids have many other interests, and music is their hobby. These ensembles are like “community orchestras” on the college level, and I personally think it’s terrific that they are there for interested students. My daughter wrote in one of her personal statements “I’ve been singing, and playing the oboe and English Horn in ensembles since I was nine years old. I do not want to give that up when I go to college.” I’m sure that sentiment is shared by many others.</p>
<p>Oberlin College and Conservatory is built for the double-degree student; the social lives of the two programs are integrated into one campus of students who learn from each other. And I absolutely never heard of any issues about not enough practice rooms, which are open 24 hours, I believe (check that point, please, I wouldn’t want to misguide).
Top-shelf academics.
Not a graduate student in sight.
Although the Midwestern location doesn’t initially appeal to many, the outstanding resources of the schools win students over.
No preppiness, frats and sororities not allowed.
Every student and faculty either participate or understand the same quest to unify intellectual and musical studies.</p>
<p>The practice rooms at Oberlin are open daily during the school year from 7:30 a.m. to midnight, except for vacation period. They mostly have windows, a rarity for a practice room, have Steinway pianos, and some have organs and harpsichords, too.</p>
<p>Oberlin College and Oberlin Conservatory are fabulous places. If you plan to double major, you also should know that most folks take at least an extra semester to complete the requirements for both degrees, and many take a full extra year.</p>
<p>What is wrong with Texas? They have some of the best music schools.</p>
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<p>The climate? ;-)</p>
<p>You are cute (12 feet of snow in NY…60, sunshine in TX)…Still asking…what’s wrong with Texas?</p>
<p>Ahh, but was myau referring to the weather?</p>