<p>My D is a classical singer and very committed to music. She wants to pursue voice performance in college, but she is not sure in which colleges the music department is separate from the admissions office of the university. She wants to keep the option open of pursuing political science, so she is also looking at universities that are strong academically. What schools are academically prestigious and also have good voice and opera programs with separate admission standards for music students?</p>
<p>Please don’t get me wrong, she has strong enough academics to get into a top school (for example, 2310 SAT score), but she wants to apply as a music major and be evaluated by her music talent only.</p>
<p>Clear sky, in voice performance I suspect her audition will be the lionshare of admit basis, but most of the schools of music still use academic profiles to refine their picks, all else being equal. At my son’s school, universiy of Michigan, the school of music admit is truly separate from the rest of the university, but they also made clear that academics are germane since you’re still taking courses at umich – so they have to know you can handle the rigor of it.
The same is even truer at northwestern, USC, and rice, I expect, although if your daughter’s stats are strong, I don’t see any downside to this. All those schools would have great polysci offerings as well (umich does for sure).</p>
<p>Ps just to clarify, universities that have separate schools of music generally have a separate admissions department. So, someone with a student in voice will give you a better idea, but schools such as university of Michigan, northwestern, USC, ccm, rice, oberlin, umd etc would all likely meet the crieria of offering both separate admissions and rigorous programs. Another poster familiar with the best voice programs might be better to advise you on the quality of the specific voice programs.</p>
<p>Your conservatories that are not aligned with a university per se will be the ones where academics don’t factor in a whit, I suspect. But even then, there are the languages requirements for voice, so my guess is that even there “academics” would have a teensy role.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is that as a classical singer, she may start out at a strong university that supports both paths, but in the end she may choose to transfer if classical music is pulling too hard. With her stats she could get some strong academic scholarships … why not get a year of low tuition while her voice continues to mature? Keep us posted!</p>
<p>OP - it sounds like your daughter wants a conservatory-style music department at a university where she can also take other subjects. If she is not looking to pursue a second major/second degree, I would add CMU to the list that kmcmom identified. If she does want the second major/second degree she could look at all of those schools as well as some of the university/conservatory associations like Harvard/NEC, Tufts/NEC, Columbia/Julliard, and Johns Hopkins/Peabody. CMU does not offer a dual degree/dual major.</p>
<p>CIM/Case Western should be on the list, but may I offer a work of caution? Don’t get too hung up on an “opera program” as an undergraduate. There are good reasons why younger students are not usually permitted to have anything more than a place in the chorus (if that) in operas. Better and safer to look for a strong, Art Song-based program and save the operas for graduate and post grad time.</p>
<p>Rice, Northwestern and USC. The usual suspects for strong academic schools with conservatory level programs. A word about CMU though. Their voice program is not in a good way right now. I won’t rag on the whole music school because their orchestras are still pretty good but their classical voice program in recent years has been in a precarious state.</p>
<p>Oberlin has a double degree program and a “low wall” between conservatory and college, meaning transfer from one to the other is not too difficult. I don’t know anything about their vocal performance program though.</p>
<p>The wall is reasonably low going from Oberlin Conservatory to the College - it requires the recommendations of two teachers from the College. You can get those if you do reasonably well in your elective classes taken through the College.</p>
<p>Going the other way requires that you be able to turn in an audition that is competitive with others who are being accepted to the Conservatory. The competition for places in the VP program is tough and nothing short of fierce if you happen to be a soprano.</p>