Piano performance/academic dual degree

I’m biased because I go to Brown, but the Open Curriculum’s amazing for students like you and I with deep interests in multiple, unrelated fields. :smile: At Brown, students can sample a variety of fields by taking any class S/NC (pass/fail,) whereas at a lot of other schools the fear of a bad grade would stop you. The Open Curriculum’s virtually no requirements (except for 2 writing designated courses, which are in multiple fields,) also makes it extremely easy to double concentrate (major) between two unrelated fields.

Take a look at Brown’s concentrations here: https://bulletin.brown.edu/the-college/concentrations/

For students requiring financial aid, Brown has an extremely strong financial aid program that meets your full demonstrated need w/o loans (the Brown Promise.) Take a look at Brown’s financial aid website: financialaid.brown.edu .

For low-income applicants, I highly recommend students look into the Questbridge College Match program and Posse Scholars, as these programs make attending a school with a high sticker price like Brown extremely affordable.

Other schools that have a strong music and traditional undergraduate program that I know of are Vanderbilt (Blair School of Music) and Johns Hopkins (Peabody Conservatory.) Keep in mind that both schools don’t have grade inflation, and if you’re worried about grades (engineering is hard everywhere though,) a school like Brown (which has no +/- grades) with more student-friendly grading policies might be more beneficial.

I do highly recommend applying ED to a school if ALL of the following are true once you’ve done more research:

  1. You LOVE your school and would 110% attend if admitted.
  2. You're extremely confident that you can present a well thought out and crafted application by the ED deadline, which is usually November 1st.
  3. You and your family can afford the school if admitted (run the school's financial aid calculators.)

Hope that helps! Good luck with admissions!