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Vanderbilt is the reason I am who I am today. With its plentiful resources, wonderful instruction, and generous faculty, I have grown considerably as a student, professional, and human being. I must be upfront about the difficulty. By no means is Vanderbilt an "Easy A" institution. However, students are pushed for good reason. Vanderbilt is a source of world class professionals in all disciplines. More importantly, Vanderbilt produces thinkers. By being exposed to new ideas, concepts, theories, and... Read More discoveries, each student brings into the world their own unique perspectives. I highly recommend Vanderbilt to any student wishing to apply. It's difficult, but well worth it.

UC Santa Cruz is a beautiful oasis of redwood trees and trails within the beach town of Santa Cruz. This campus is truly unique, and there are many microcosms of communities within the 17,000+ students here. This being said, Santa Cruz is a small town, and the university does not make proper accommodations for the ever growing population of students accepted each year. The housing market in Santa Cruz is extremely competitive and toxic for students, many of which are first-time renters. The school... Read More will need to make major improvements on providing resources for students to have their basic needs met in the coming years. I don't wish to discourage prospective students from applying, I just wish to shed light on this issue that the school seems to ignore. Despite this, I have been able to find a lovely community of people in Santa Cruz and have had an enriching experience learning from instructors in the Music Department. I have worked at UC Santa Cruz's radio station, KZSC Santa Cruz 88.1 FM for all four years of undergrad, and the skills I've gained within radio/media broadcast have been incredibly impactful on my career interests. Not to mention, serving the community as a radio DJ and administrative member at the radio station has opened my eyes to how valuable community radio and public media is!

The music degree was something I was proud to be earning at the Lamont School of Music. The faculty at the school is amazing and incredibly helpful. My main professor was the best resource in helping me find the next step in my future as well as helping me develop my skills. The school has undergone a lot of bureaucratic pettiness but I think they are trying to turn it around for the better. At the time that I left, the ensembles were top notch. The academics sometimes lack though and feel like high... Read More school courses rather than collegiate level. An overall good experience with a medium sized school that had a very small, close community feel.

The music department at CSUEB is supportive and encouraging I studied classical guitar performance and composition, my focus leaned more towards composition my last year there, I also transfered there for a community college so I went there from 2016 - 2018. Most of the faculty there is great I studied privately with J.M. for composition and M.T. for classical guitar. M. has retired but I have met the new composition teacher I.T., and she is quite good as well. M.T. is very knowledgable and is a... Read More good teacher if you are very self motivated, if you slack off he will not take you seriously or try to motivate you. The only real downside I had going to this school was that there was/still is low enrollment of music students, so there is not a full section in many of the performance groups. there is no orchestra or any performance group if your a guitarist they make you do choir. this can also be a good thing because it means there is less competition, but again you must be very self motivated in this environment. The music building has been reseeding and they are moving more and more english classes and others things in there. however there is some very good equipment and resources hidden away there because no one has been using it for so long, so if you go seek it out and find the resources there you could have almost unlimited access to them because no one else uses them, like instruments, a recording studio, other sound video recording equipment.

My experience at Utah Valley University has been unbeatable. I have gone to UVU for 4 years, and will be graduating this semester. In this time, I have worked with almost every teacher in the music department. One of the best things about the music department is that students really do get amazing opportunities that don't exist elsewhere. A huge example of this was the fact that I was able to be an assistant conductor for UVU choirs for 2 years. In this position, I acquired invaluable skills, and... Read More had experiences that simply aren't available to undergraduates in normal circumstances. At auditions for master's programs I was told that my preparation was superior to most of the other applicants, some of whom had taught high school for years. This is all thanks to the quality of instruction of the choir teachers Dr. C. and Dr. W. They held weekly conducting lessons, and gave me about 5 minutes each day in rehearsal to work with the choirs. This kind of immersion is unheard of and unequaled by any other institution. I was also asked to compose a piece for the men's choir and teach it to them as well as deliver a performance of it at the state choir ACDA convention. This kind of hands on experience for students is exactly what UVU is known for. In every department, not just in music, there are opportunities available to students where they can become engaged with the school, community, and their passions. UVU's motto is "engaged learning," and I have definitely been a benefactor of this attitude. I would recommend UVU to anyone who wants to go to a college where students really do get to be in the driver's seat!

I studied the Bachelor of Music in Music Composition at Brigham Young University. The faculty focus on expanding the musical influences of each student to include contemporary composition techniques and to push the envelope with what can be done to achieve a new, original sound. The faculty are all very skilled in composition and each have their own unique insights. I am pursuing a career in composing for games, film, and television, and while this program did an excellent job expanding my compositional... Read More toolkit, I find it necessary to pursue a graduate degree in film scoring to fully prepare me for the media music industry.

I was always in love with music. However, due to the competitive nature of a music career, I was reluctant on pursuing a music degree. That's when I found out that the University of Tulsa had it set up where a student was able to get a music degree while taking rigorous math classes. The music program is very close knit, my average class size was 5 people, so I was able to get to know a lot of my professors on a personal level and still text them today. In addition, the small class sizes did not... Read More deter me from making connections. Because of the many extracurricular activities and events that go on around campus, I was able to meet many wonderful people. Scholarships were wonderful too: I got a scholarship that covered tuition, room & board, and "dining dollars" which were money to spend on food at the student union. If you are a high achieving student, I would definitely recommend the University of Tulsa for your undergraduate.

Specifically in regards to the Music program on campus (NOT the Eastman School of Music, which is a separate institution under UR) The curriculum is more academically centered (being a B.A. Degree as opposed to a B.M. ) However the quality of the classes in Theory, History and Musicianship/Aural Skills are excellent, in particular the History and Theory, which do much to prepare students for graduate level entrance exams. Class sizes are generally around 20 or less, and professors are very approachable... Read More and are willing and eager to help students. There is also a decent variety of music elective courses (world music, jazz history, popular music studies) for a particular track you may decide on, in addition to collaboration with the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences for a new B.S. in Audio-Music Engineering. However in terms of performance groups, there are not any music major ensembles at the UR, which may be a problem for those who are seeking to go into music graduate programs in performance. In addition, there are no required recitals (though there are juries each year as a requirement for lessons, which are usually taken with graduate students at Eastman), though students have the option of performing a recital if they choose. Overall, the Music Program at the University of Rochester may not be the best place for a performance degree, but for academic fields in music (musicology, history, theory, etc) and for popular music studies, as well as music engineering, UR provides a competitive program for undergraduates.

Truman is a good school if you are on a tight budget; most of the students get a financial aid, and compared to other schools, the tuition is much more affordable. The faculty to student ratio of 1:16 makes communications between students and faculty much easier, as well. Overall, the campus is pretty safe, and if you are looking to focus on academic only, it is a decent school to go to. Those facts aside, the city of Kirksville does not offer many places to go for shopping or too much entertainment,... Read More which could be a downer for some people. And unless a student brings in a college credit, due to the liberal arts curriculum, you will have to take more gen. ed (LSP courses) compared to the other universities, which could take away your time to focus on your own major study (especially as a music major, this took away my time to practice for my solos and ensemble music). Overall, Truman State is a good school and affordable to many. And the education program (MAE) lets the student get a Masters Degree within five years, and most students get a job after the degree.