<p>Just augmenting what Singersmom07 said, your state flagship university may be a good choice, most likely whatever state you live in.</p>
<p>Most of the larger, more “popular” state universities tend to be oriented towards the needs of the slightly above average student, they tend to have a lot of name recognition, and most employers recognize that they have standards that the students have to meet.</p>
<p>My son was accepted at a smaller, less well known private college which is more academically prestigious than either of our state flagship colleges. he asked me if he went to that school if he could expect to make more money than if he just went to the state university. In his major, music ed, the answer is “no” to making more money in teaching because generally teachers salaries are set within a very tight range and whoever does the hiring at schools usually doesn’t have any leeway in offering more money. </p>
<p>Statisically the chances of him getting into a better graduate program (more so in an academic field than music though) would probably be better after graduating from the more selective private college, mostly because most people in academia recognize most “better” colleges, but thats because “better” students tend to attend the more expensive private colleges, not so much because the colleges teach any better.</p>
<p>As far as general employment opportunities in the private sector, there may be some advantage to going to a larger state university. Outside of our part of the country, and outside of academia, the smaller private college is not going to have much name recognition, and the employer may not recognize it as being a “better” or more prestigious college. But they are certainly going to recognize “The University of (any state)” or “(AnyState) University”.</p>
<p>Also, in the private sector, there may be a slight advantage of going to a larger college as employers often like to hire people who went to the same college that they did, or at least a college that is similar to theirs, thus it is statistically more likely that the employer may have went to a larger college.</p>
<p>Most college professors at larger colleges, particularly in music programs, will have an impressive resume. Most will have terminal degrees, and/or will have been members of professional ensembles, and/or attended prestigious colleges before teaching music at the college level. </p>
<p>And compmom is also correct. When applying to music school, the decision is mostly based upon your audition. While some awards may make a difference when the school has to chose between two otherwise equal auditions, most of the time if one had even just a tad bit better audition, that student will be the one accepted, regardless of anything else. If you have to make a choice between trying to gain awards, or trying to have a better audition, you should concentrate on the audition. you really don’t need to make Allstate, you just need to be an Allstate level performer at the time that you audition for the school.</p>
<p>Also, it depends on what “not bad” means. There are probably not a lot of colleges that have a "bad’ music program, but there are lots of colleges that have no music program, or no performance program. I would say that my son’s state university is “not bad” in music, it’s not world famous for music, and usually not a top choice among top level music students, but it does have a very substantial and rigorous program with lots of performance opportunities. Our other flagship university, and our local branch university doesn’t even offer a music degree, so I would have to suggest that they wouldn’t be sensible choice for someone interested in music.</p>
<p>Google the most popular state univiersities in your area, take a look at the creditials of the music instructors, and I suspect that you will be impressed with their qualifications.</p>