<p>My daughter is looking at some of the same schools. Her choice is now between Peabody, SFCM and CCM for violin undergrad. Each has strong points. I don’t see how SFCM is considered weaker. It has excellent teachers and being the only music school in a cultural center with lots of money (silicon valley) can’t hurt in the long run. In the past ten years it has built a new building for itself and now makes dorm space available for students, (though students must cook their own meals) which wasn’t the case even a few years ago. It seems to have come a long way. CCM is strong historically but is associated with a a state university which appears to be seeing some tight times financially. I think I read somewhere though that after Julliard, NEC, Eastman, Indiana, Oberlin and a couple of others that more big city symphony violinists have a CCM background than any other school. Perhaps CIM is high on that list as well. The CCM grounds on campus are absolutely beautiful. True that CCM is more known for voice and musical theatre but it is not weak in strings from my observation at auditions. I don’t know much about CIM teachers. One worry I would have about all the campuses, CIM, SFCM, Peabody and CIM (I hear) is that the surrounding neighborhoods are somewhat dicey. In our case, Peabody is somewhat an issue because it gave no scholarships whereas SFCM and CCM did give some scholarships and aid of some sort of help is crucial for us. Any other word on these schools would help.</p>