<p>This article seems to have some useful thoughts on the process of choosing/evaluating music programs. Much of this has already been discussed in various threads but it might be helpful to have the compilation this article offers.</p>
<p><a href=“Why College Music School Rankings Are All Wrong | HuffPost College”>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost;
<p>This is a fantastic article, I have added it to the useful music links sticky thread. About the only thing I would give the guy an argument about is financial aid, what he says is true but it depends on the program. Programs that are looking to attract high caliber students to bring up the reputation of their program will offer a lot more money in merit aid and will give less weight to family income, but that is not true of all schools. Some of the top conservatories financial aid policy takes family need into account for both straight aid and merit aid (and I am certain of this, their admissions department said it outright), so the amount of merit aid you get may not indicate how much they want you. When you have a program with a reputation, like a Juilliard for example, where they pick and choose among top quality students applying and the general level is high, need is going to be a lot more of a factor with merit awards then a program that has a wider range of students in the program. In other words, if you apply to the newbie school of music that is trying to build their reputation, your family income is such that your EFC is really high, you are a very accomplished player, you are a lot more likely IME to get a lot of merit aid then at a school like Juilliard where you are probably closer to the typical student (obviously, if you are talking someone who is world class, who already has artists management, etc, a yo yo ma or something like that, this may not hold, but I am not talking extreme outliers).</p>
<p>The rest of it matches what I have seen on the instrumental side. And yes, the whole rankings thing is idiotic, they are attempting to use the same rankings they do for academic programs (which in turn are flawed, for a number of reasons). Music has its own path, it has its own challenges, and own rewards, and I think rankings at best can only show some aspects of the process. Facilities are important, but there are several top level schools that have great teachers and top level students, whose facilities are so so. I disagree with the author, with money for facilities, some of that has to do with the ‘glamor’ thing for the donors. If a well off donor gives money to a school, it often is about flattering their ego to have a name associated with ‘the best’. It is a lot easier to get someone to donate money to Harvard or Yale, for example, because that is prestigious, whereas some small liberal arts college, that is otherwise fantastic, may have less cachet to donate to. In the music world, the one music school that has penetrated public consciousness is Juilliard, almost everyone knows of it, so it is not surprising they gather a lot of donations (I am not saying Juilliard is not a great program, I am saying that because it is the one conservatory that potential philanthropists have heard of, they will be more likely to donate there…). It doesn’t mean facilities aren’t important, they are, but it may not be the total show stopper the guy seems to say. </p>
<p>Here is the definitive music school ranking:</p>
<p><a href=“Seated Ovation: Top Ten Music School Rankings”>http://seatedovation.blogspot.com.ar/2014/04/top-ten-music-school-rankings.html</a></p>
<p>Trumpet players (and friendlies) will appreciate no. 5.</p>
<p>Top Ten Music School Rankings
10. The school where you did your undergrad.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The school where you got your Master’s, and to which you are indebted for the gigs it helped you get to pay off the student loans for the school where you did your undergrad.</p></li>
<li><p>The place where you wrote your DMA dissertation on your teacher’s teacher’s teacher’s pedagogical methods (or lack thereof).</p></li>
<li><p>Juellerd. Julleard? Julliard. Jewelyard? Whatever.</p></li>
<li><p>Harvard.</p></li>
<li><p>The place you wanted to go for undergrad, but you fracked one single note in one single excerpt and then you panicked and broke down and called the trumpet professor “Dad” and then Dave got in even though he couldn’t play Petrushka in time and he’s always been kind of a (jerk) about it and now he’s subbing like every weekend in the ■■■■■■■ BSO.</p></li>
<li><p>Royal Something of Great British Academy I think? I hear they never let Americans in. Or maybe that’s the other one?</p></li>
<li><p>The school that everybody knows isn’t as good as the school where you did your undergrad, but is “up-and coming.” Featuring a lauded entrepreneurship initiative that trains barista skills at one of the three coffee shops housed in its new state-of-the-art building, named for an alumnus of the university’s business school currently facing indictment for fraud.</p></li>
<li><p>University of Phoenix.</p></li>
<li><p>The school that has paid to have this list promoted on Facebook.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>;) </p>
<p>Hahahahaha tomdug!</p>
<p>best list ever</p>
<p>OMG Tomdug, I ended up with Coffee on my monitor! Thanks for the laugh, I needed it. </p>
<p>Did you click through to the list from USAToday? Zowie! Check out the comments.</p>
<p>I not only clicked through the comments but then went to the sources data at College Factual. The list they have there is not the same as the list posted in the USA Today article.
So unless they really changed their methodology since the June article was done, not sure where the USA Today author got their list.</p>
<h1>1 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI</h1>
<h1>2 Northwestern University Evanston, IL</h1>
<h1>3 Yale University New Haven, CT</h1>
<h1>4 Oberlin College Oberlin, OH</h1>
<h1>5 Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX</h1>
<h1>6 University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA</h1>
<h1>7 Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA</h1>
<h1>8 Boston University Boston, MA</h1>
<h1>9 Ithaca College Ithaca, NY</h1>
<h1>10 DePauw University Greencastle, IN</h1>
<p>The funny thing about the USA Today list is that it doesn’t correspond to any ot the lists that I could find on the “College Factual” website. </p>
<p>Not that there is any real validity to any list :)</p>
<p>If the list in singersmom post is supposed to be the best music schools, then they are using criteria that I don’t understand. For example, U Mich has a solid school of music, its performance programs are very highyl rated, and they have some solid faculty…likewise Northwestern has a great school of music, with strong faculty, but I think both of them are highly rated because they are using things like SAT scores and such…and in terms of the level of students in performance there, I am not so certain they are as high a level as some of the really top schools out there…Yale doesn’t have an undergraduate performance degree, and BU’s music program from everything i know about it is not in the most competitive category (again, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good school or that it doesn’t have high level students, I am talking across the board).Ithaca and depauw are well regarded, but again, you aren’t going to have the level there across the board you see at the highly competitive schools. SMU as far as I know has an okay school of music, but is generally regarded as second tier in terms of competitiveness.</p>
<p>One of the things that all the schools in question have is that they are tough academic admits (I assume with Oberlin they looked at SAT scores and such). It is also possible that some of the programs on this list are there because they are a lot better with financial aid and/or are a lot cheaper; Yale might be expensive, but ivies tend to be generous with aid, and schools like Depauw and Ithaca are probably both cheaper tuition and for competitive musicians offer better aid. </p>
<p>my take is that the lists don’t mean anything, other than the list tomdug put out, that one is important (to get laughs out of). Among other things, what some ranking in a list says about a school doesn’t mean anything in an education that is by definition very personal and driven by a lot of factors; what makes one program great to one person makes it a nightmare for another (for example, friend of my son loves oberlin, because it is in a rural area and is very kind of hippyish; my S would think that hell, because he likes cities <em>lol</em>). </p>
<p>Some people think Curtis is the cats meow of music schools, others think it is a cutthroat factory trying to turn out soloists in a world that doesn’t exist any more and works against kids becoming real musicians, as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. </p>
<p>Americans (taken collectively) love lists-bests cities to live in,best restaurants, best schools, best neighborhoods, best family vacation spots best cities to retire, best colleges, best cars, best music schools. To me, it seems a media driven obsession. It is hard to grasp what any of these lists accomplish when one considers the wide variation from list to list (and the differing criteria and weighting of criteria). One can feel smug or foolish depending on what list is the latest “hot read”.</p>
<p>I suspect it is as you say, that people love lists because they seem easy in that they ‘filter’ out for you the choices you need to make (whether the filter is good is another story), and then once you choose something, you can say proudly “My S went to college Y, which is a top 10 best value in USNWR”, or “I bought car X, which is a consumer reports top 10 best buy” or whatever…</p>
<p>Well, I for one think Tomdug’s list is the most accurate I’ve seen to date. Now I have to clean up the coffie I just spit all over my monitor…</p>
Like musicprint, I applaud the Author of the article for attempting to address such a complex subject, which is why “overall” rankings are near impossible in the music field. Yes overall school/program reputation is a factor, but that is just one of many - as stated elsewhere, are they focused more on graduate vs. undergrad, is their reputation more about the Jazz side or Symphonic, is the cost worth it, does the cost justify that program over others, do you want a cutthroat competitive or nuturing environment, does the school invest in the music program (scholarships, dedicated facilities, size of program, etc), do they bring in guest/visiting musicians of national reputation for your instrument, dso they have opportunity to perform with national artists on stage, do you have real opportunities to audition for and get in the best ensembles, are they sending students on to convervatories or professional ranks…and often left out but HUGE IMO, how you get along with/are they capable of teaching and inspiring you to the next level and the reputation of the specific professor of YOUR instrument (I am not speaking for overall jazz ensemble, conducting, etc but more for students who play a specific instrument).
Example - you’ll see University of North Texas on lots of lists, and their ranking for their Jazz program may be well deserved, but what if you want to be a Symphonic musician? Is that the best option for you?
My Son will be a Senior Performance Major on a scholarship and it’s been an incredible 3 years for him - however I have to tell you he turned down more than one offer from schools with much higher national reputations for several of the reasons above. At one top 15 “ranked” school, the Professor explained he would mostly be taught by “graduate students” because said Professor had to focus at least 50% of his time to Master’s and Doctoral students - which immediately turned my Son off to that program, even though he personally called trying to recruit him. You’re going to spend 4 years with that Professor (assuming they don’t leave), with what essentially amounts to a Private Lesson and Studio class every week, plus ensembles, etc - in other words, don’t underestimate how you mesh with your instrumental professor, because they are going to be the key to your life for 4 years!
If your kid’s instrument is viola, than you should certainly consider UNT, even though the school has a big rep for their Jazz department. You would get a better viola teacher there than at a lot of “higher ranked” schools - even some of those in the Big Ten.
What steps can a person take to form up an opinion on the quality of a particular teacher, so that a person can home in on good value options like this? I have heard rough ideas, like to look at what famous students are coming from a professor, but how does one go about this fact-finding? For example, how would one go check out the excellence of the UNT viola teacher? My S is looking towards jazz bass, and we have some time to look, but I feel at a loss for how to figure out where all the hidden gems of instructors are.
One of my son’s friends (jazz bass) visited a bunch of different schools, taking lessons at each, and narrowed his list to Oberlin, Eastman, NEC and Berklee
Also, my son’s teachers at NEC Prep were helpful with suggestions as to fit. I’m thinking your son will be preparing a prescreen so audition requirements invariably play a part in narrowing down the options. You have lots of time to sort this out. I think the other students end up being really important in a jazz program.
This is where sample lessons really contribute to one’s understanding. YMMV, but my D walked away from these with clear feelings about who she clicked with and who was a fine teacher but maybe not the best fit.