How Competitive Are Music Schools?

College Majors Music Majors
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Hi all.

We are starting our journey to the music school admissions. My D is a rising senior in high school, and her instrument is voice. I understand the admission process for non-music majors - based on GPA, SAT/ACT for some colleges, and a “holistic” review of extracurricular activities and essays. But what about music school admissions? We are looking into universities and not conservatories - which might complicate the admission, and you might need to satisfy multiple requirements.

Here is our current list:
All University of California schools, University of Illinois and Urbana Champaign, UW Madison, Indiana U, U Colorado, U Arizona, U Washington at Seattle, Arizona State U, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, De Paul, Occidental, Pomona College.
But without knowing the admission criteria nor the acceptance rate, I don’t know which ones will be safety and which ones will be reach (or beyond reach). In case it helps, D has 3.9 W GPA, 7 APs, 3 college courses at community college, 10 years of voice training (but not a lot of classical), 6 years of piano, 4 years of flute, 4+ years of intense Musical Theater participation (her main extracurricular), pretty decent community service, summer program, competitions etc.

Here are my specific questions to understand about the admission process:

  • Approximately how many voice major students do these schools take every year? I just heard one of the UCs apparently takes 4-5 voice students per year, which seems very, very few!! Frankly, that made me start questioning the feasibility of her admission sweat_smile:
  • What are the acceptance rates of these schools ? Do they publish numbers? If you went to the audition, or your students helped in the audition, do you have any idea from them how many folks audition every year?
  • Some schools say that the students must meet the university’s minimum admission requirements; and others are silent. What other criteria the music school admission is based on? e.g. GPA, SAT, statement, or just the audition? By the way, a handful of these colleges do not do auditions - e.g., Pomona College only does a music supplement, and UC Berkeley doesn’t even do a music supplement - so for these, I understand music major vs non-music majors are reviewed based on mostly the same criteria.

If you know of any resources to find this information, let me know. If you have a student in any of these schools, perhaps you know about that specific school—so if you post that information, that would be great. I think it can help many other applicants as well.

Lastly, I would love to get an idea of the level of preparedness of students who get admitted to these schools. I read in other threads someone suggested looking up freshman year’s recitals or videos. That’s a great idea, but I haven’t yet been successful in finding any… I will keep looking, but if you have a student in these schools, could you find out from them their specific link?

Thank you all for your help.

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One of my kids is a professional musician with both a bachelors and masters in music performance. If your daughter is looking at a performance degree, the audition is THE number one criteria she will need to satisfy. There is no such thing as a “safety” school for music performance. Your daughter’s audition will be compared to the others in her voice range, and there is no predicting the strength of those auditioning from year to year.

She needs to look at the repertoire required for the auditions, and discuss all of this with her private voice teacher (I’m assuming she has a private voice teacher). We found that our kid’s private teacher had a very good handle on where he might best audition, and be accepted. In our case, the school had excellent music teachers and they were helpful also.

Really…your private voice teacher is the a key ingredient here. That person should have a sense of how your daughter will do learning and presenting the required repertoire pieces.

You are right…at some universities, your daughter will also have to be academically accepted as well.

I’m assuming you have read the double degree dilemma. If not…please do.

What is her career goal? In other threads, you have mentioned musical theater type of singing, and got very good advice on how to proceed with that.

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thumper1 is spot on! Coming to add that some of the schools that said the student “needs to meet regular admission requirements” did accept my son who is a very good student but did not meet regular criteria at all…so I do believe the music piece takes precedent. My point is don’t “not apply” if you think the school wont take them academically because they just might. He is not a double major (has a history minor) at a University not a conservatory.

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We were told at several auditions (My D is an opera voice major - now a masters but did undergrad at a conservatory) that all the schools she looked at took about 10% of those who audition. If you are soprano you can look around the room and see how many there are. Mezzos there are less. She applied to 5 schools, got 3 in person auditions and got 2 offers. One was a conservatory and one was a traditional school. Just expect lots of competition but don’t be discouraged.

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Can you clarify your definition/idea of Conservatory? I ask because Northwestern is on your list, and Bienen considers itself a conservatory within the larger university. (Oberlin as well- it’s in the name lol- but that’s not on your list).

So, perhaps you are saying she does not want a standalone conservatory- like Juilliard for example- where there is not a larger college community pursuing majors other than music or performance?

Regarding the audition vs. academic admission- I would say that Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern are two that weigh both equally. The majority of the others that offer BMus degrees weigh the audition far more heavily.

It is difficult to put a number to the admission rate of performance majors because there is a wide variety of instruments and each year they admit a slightly different number due to the needs of the program in a given year based on who is expected to graduate that year.

I second the private teacher advice- this is a person who should have an idea of where the student is compared to her peers and may be familiar with some college faculty. It may be too late, but summer programs were very helpful to my S22 in meeting various college voice faculty and getting a sense of how he compared at the time to his peers.

Feel free to DM me with any voice specific questions. Happy to answer what I can!

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Have you considered any of the CSUs? If I remember correctly you have the UCs on your list so I assume you are in California?
Several of the CSUs have very strong music programs and larger departments than many of the UCs. For vocal performance in So Cal, highly recommend CSULB and CSUF. (Fullerton has an amazing MT Program as well)

We are a family of musicians. My husband graduated years ago with a music degree from CSULB. We know many recent grads and they seem very happy with the program and well trained not only musically, but in the art of promoting themselves and networking. And the voice majors seem to do quite well in grad school admissions.

Just a thought if your daughter is looking towards grad school (very common especially for voice) it can be a huge advantage to complete the first 4 years in a great undergrad program at CSU cost.

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100% agree- S22’s pre college private voice teacher is on the faculty at CSULB and they are doing fabulous things. I hear the same re Fullerton but have no personal connections there.

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UCLA is the only UC with a conservatory. I don’t know how hard it is to get in for music, but we see how few teachers they have per instrument (sometimes 1), and knowing they also have graduate students, I am assuming they take in very few kids per instrument. I haven’t looked at voice.
I think for those schools that aren’t audition based, music is just an extracurricular. The jury is out on the extent the supplements can help.
And yes, CSUs often have stronger music departments and less theoretical ones found at UCs.

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Just wanted to add to everyone else’s suggestions of CSULB and CSUF. Most of the universities told us that there is a minimum GPA they are looking for. Usually 3.3 or 3.0 unweighted. Good SAT/ACT can help as well. Some schools would not admit that their GPA requirements for music students are not the same, but in retrospect we know that to be the case.

There is a very helpful Facebook group: “Vocal Performance Parents” that you may find useful. One of the moms there attempted to put together admission spreadsheet with the number of applications vs enrolled students. You may find it useful.

From the universities on your list, my daughter auditioned at UW Madison and CU Boulder. UW Madision did not have a pre-screen and CU Boulder told us that 70% of voice applicants passed pre-screen.

Good luck!

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Sorry this is a bit late, but since people go back and read these threads, I wanted to comment on some of it (I can’t talk about voice, that is a world since my son is a violinist has its own dynamics I don’t know well).

With music programs (I am leaving the academics out with schools inside a university, ppl have commented on that and each school is different) as others have pointed out it is the audition, roughly 10 minutes to sell yourself. The schools publish their audition requirements and as threads on here over the years have said, once you have an idea of the schools you are interested in, you will likely have to figure out repertoire (if it works like instrumental, where there are options, where a requirement at one school might fit a requirement at another that seems different. For example, if school A wants Bartok and School B wants a 20th century piece, a Bartok Sonata could do both. The idea is to limit the amount of rep you have to learn.

And I agree totally that if your D has a private teacher, talk to them, they hopefully will know what is out there.

In terms of how competitive music programs are, that really depends on the nature of the program. When you are talking the supposed A list music schools (and these are just examples, it isn’t comprehensive), the Juilliards, NEC, Curtis and so forth, the competition level is insane (and even there, it varies, NEC has a higher acceptance rate than Juilliard or Curtis for example, because so many see those two schools as “the best” and they are flooded with applicants. There are a lot of music programs out there now, and there are programs that if you are halfway decent you will get in, there are others where you can be top 1% and not get in, so it is hard to say without talking specific programs. IU/Jacobs admits a lot of students (it is huge), so they are easier than some of the other programs (doesn’t mean it isn’t a great program, friend of mine described it(he went there) as kind of survival of the fittest, if you didn’t get to the top tier with things, they would suggest dual majoring or switching).

A friend on here when I was on here said that with vocal music, because voices develop later and the nature of the beast, that with undergraduate you don’t necessarily have to go to the showcase schools, that you can develop at a decent vocal program then attempt the big leagues in grad school (which these days is getting to be more and more de rigeur for musicans. My son and the members of his group have multiple masters degrees and ads and the like. So it may be fine to find a program that is affordable and you can get in, then make the push in grad school (again, not claiming much knowledge there).

One big thing I can’t emphasize enough, the audition is only 50% of the challenge. With music school admissions the other part is a teacher has to be willing to teach you. Teacher availability plays into it, they have limited space and that plays into who they can take (I went to an admissions event at Juilliard, the admissions person mentioned that year on flute that they literally had 1 slot available with one teacher, grad or undergrad).

This was debated a lot and one of the things I can tell you is that getting exposed to the teacher is a significant advantage. Can people get in without that? Of course, like anything in music there are no absolute rules IMO. If you are interested in teachers and can do it, teachers will often arrange sample lessons to see if there is a fit (both ways). Some do it for free, others charge, but it can really be helpful. You get to see what their teaching style is like, and they get to see you. Some kids do it when they are at the school for auditions, but scheduling may be difficult.

Hopefully this helped a bit. I know how hard it is, we didnt know much, and even though my son had been in Juilliards pre college program and had been around a lot of musicians at levels from gig musicians to members of orchestras and chamber groups and soloists, and it still was difficult to navigate.

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Great post, thank you. Tips on how to make connections with potential teachers? Does a student just reach out? Have their private teacher reach out?

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There are various ways I have seen (and hopefully other people can chime in, music is a big field (some snarkers say it is a minefield you navigate using a map of Berlin from WWII…shout out to an old episode of MASH lol)

-If kids do music programs, faculty there often are teachers. Can also be things like master classes as well that sometimes music schools or local chamber programs run.

-A teacher may be helpful, they may know people as performers who now teacher, or people they went to school with.

-You can also contact teachers at programs and ask for a sample lesson. You may get ghosted, you may get a no, you never know, but it is worth a shot. These days with Zoom and such it may be easier, but I don’t know if teachers are getting blasted with such requests these days.

-I know of instances where with a specific teacher they kept on eye on what they were doing, and if they were doing something (like performing) they went to the performance, and introduced themselves after. Now I doubt Itzak Perlman does meet and greets after he performs, but a lot of teachers still perform all over the place and while not everyone does it, many such performances have meet and greets after. It is better that cold calling, plus you get an idea of what they are like. If they brush the kid off (something no classical musician should be doing, or any musician for that matter) or are a jerk or condescending, you may want to avoid them.

-True story, I know of a high school kid who really liked a chamber group. They sent a favorite recording of the groups to the school where one of the members taught to ask if they could sign it (they really did it for that reason). Ended up getting back a signed CD from the whole group , plus the kid ended up emailing and talking to the person and later that helped them get to study with the group members old teacher.

Like I said music is a wide field, and networking is a huge help in navigating it.

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Mine started going to the college summer camps between freshman and sophmore year of high school. It was a great way to meet professors and get a vibe for the school. He wound up having connections with a couple of them straight through auditions in senior year. It was helpful in that he found someone he really wanted to work with, as well as, some back up plans! Of note: we are in CT so we had alot of local (NYC to Boston and Rochester) options. Funny though… he did wind up at Univ of North Texas in their jazz program

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Thank you, I like the meet and greet idea. The other ideas are great too.

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Thanks! She did BUTI this summer and will do them in 2025 and 2026, maybe 2027 too depending how things go.

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I second the master class idea. When a senior in high school, my son attended a master class held by a jazz guitar prof he really wanted to study with. The prof recognized him in the audience thanks to a previous sample lesson and asked him if he had his guitar on him. Of course my son’s answer was yes (he never leaves home without one–haha). He was invited to participate on stage with the college kids and jumped right up there. That spring he auditioned and was accepted to that prof’s school.

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My opinion…four years of BUTI needs to be considered carefully. There are tons of other music festivals and programs to which this student can apply after her second year of BUTI. I would be researching those.

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I agree with Thumper1. It isn’t that BUTI isn’t a good program, it is that it can be valuable to do diverse programs, BUTI has its own culture/goals and it may be great to experience thinga that are different.

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agree

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agree - lots of good programs depending on the instrument and goals - we did something different each year starting in 7th grade summer and getting “bigger” or more high-level from there. Covid 2020 summer was the only lacking one since everything was online and not very helpful, but we’ve done a different in-person program every other year from 2018-this past summer.