Safety Music Schools

<p>It depends a lot on where you intend to audition. If you are looking at the top conservatories, you will be competing against other young composers who have already had a good bit more formal training in music theory and compostitional techniques. That disadvantage can be overcome, but you are going to have to demonstrate a lot of innate talent in your compositions to do so.</p>

<p>Re-reading your initial post, I see that you are not talking about conservatories, but colleges with separate music schools/departments. In some of those cases (and I am thinking of programs like Princeton and MIT, which are well known for their composition departments) you may still have some pretty sophisticated competition. In schools where the composition teachers are not as much in demand, you will probably be up against other kids who are a lot like yourself. I think the best thing you could do in those cases is to be sure that you can talk about your own works, explain how you got your ideas and how you worked with them to get to the end product. Also, it never hurts to display at least a passing familiarity with any works that the intended teacher may have published.</p>