With just more than 4,100 students and an average class size of 11, Berklee College teaches music with a combination of scholarly and performance-based instruction with a liberal arts curriculum and a particular appreciation for jazz and popular music rooted in an African cultural Diaspora.
Students can choose in one or two of the following 12 majors to focus their instruction: composition; contemporary writing and production; electronic production and design; film scoring; jazz composition; music business/management; music education; music production and engineering; music therapy; performance; professional music; and songwriting.
Students can also take interdisciplinary courses through Africana Studies, the American Roots Music Program or the Berklee Global Jazz Institute.
The Office of Admissions judges all applicants on their individual merits and grants scholarships to exceptional students. All applicants must schedule an audition and interview, which are held across the United States and Canada as well as around the globe.
Berklee College
1140 Boylston St.
Boston, MA 02215
617-266-1400
berklee.edu
Students at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music (JCM) benefit from one-on-one tutorials with accomplished career musicians working in New York City who share their knowledge of jazz, blues, pop and other new genres. Other courses include master classes with industry leaders and other artists that have included Pat Metheny and Roy Hargrove. JCM students receive plenty of individual attention.
Although the enrollment for the entire New School is approximately 5,400, JCM enrollment is approximately 300. Whether working toward a BFA or BA for vocalists or for instrumentalists, all JCM students must develop basic instrumental proficiency. All students are tested upon admission. Those needing to improve their skills must take private lessons. Admitted students also take tests administered by faculty in arranging, ear training, piano, rhythmic analysis, sight-reading and theory and performance to gauge their placement in required core studio courses.
JCM requires no minimum high school GPA and does not require the SAT. If students want to pursue the combined BA/BFA degree with the New School's liberal arts school, Eugene Lang College, they must take the SAT. All applicants who live 200 miles from New York City and vocal applicants living in North America must schedule an on-campus audition.
The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music
55 West 13th St., 5th Floor
New York, NY 10011
212-229-5896
newschool.edu/jazz
Founded in 1865 and hosting approximately 600 students who enjoy a student-faculty ratio of 7 to 1, the Oberin Conservatory of Music offers a Bachelor of Music (BM) degree with seven possible majors. Students can pursue composition; technology in music and related arts; jazz studies; music history; and performance, which they can specialize on brass, early instruments, organ, percussion, piano, strings, voice or woodwinds.
Two other options are available as a five-year double major with the College of Arts and Sciences: music theory and piano performance and vocal accompanying. The Conservatory also offers four master's programs in conjunction with the BM programs and two four-semester diploma programs that enable students to either prepare for the BM or acquire more experience after they have graduated.
Oberlin sets no minimum GPA or SAT score requirements but admitted students typically have completed college preparatory high school classes in English, foreign language, laboratory science, mathematics and social science. Conservatory applicants must also take an online Theory Test and schedule an audition on campus or at one of its regional audition sites held across the country and in Asia.
Oberlin Conservatory of Music
39 W. College St.
Oberlin, OH 44074
440-775-8413
new.oberlin.edu/conservatory