<p>So it’s all about tradeoffs (darn, I was hoping choosing a college would be easy!). I guess I’ll find out how good I am when I enter the nat’l music competition this fall. </p>
<p>You say they won’t deal with beginners (that makes perfect sense) - is it possible though to rise from that beginner position to gain that access? The problem is, there is NO ONE I know from MN that composes (no students at least), so I can’t compare my work. The program at CIM was the only opportunity for me to do that, and when I did so, there were really only 3 kids that actually had work sizeable to mine (as in there was good melodic development - drama - and wasn’t simply an excersize in “hmm, let’s see what happens when I voice out these chord changes with instruments.” </p>
<p>Your and BassDad’s general consensus seem to be that the better or more well known professors are at the Ivies (I know, I read good). If I end up not being good enough - the department simply can’t just say, “No, I won’t let you enroll in these classes” - right? And if that indeed happens, I’ll be ‘stuck’ taking classes from professors at the LAC level. - Is my hypothetical scenario more or less correct?</p>