Educated Quest.com

2012-13 Edition

Profile:The Juilliard School,New York, NY

1 Introduction to The Juilliard School

Background

Fast Facts

1. The Juilliard School is to dance, drama and music what MIT is to engineering or Wharton is to business. It is the most selective, as well as the most rigorous school in the disciplines.

2. Less than nine percent of the students who applied to join the freshman class in 2012 were accepted.

3. Approximately half of the members of the New York Philharmonic and the majority of the members of the other Lincoln Center orchestras are Juilliard alumni.

4. Since 1970 Juilliard has been located within Manhattan’s Lincoln Center arts district, a perfect location for aspiring performing artists to showcase their talents.

2

About The Juilliard School

The Juilliard School is to dance, drama and music what MIT is to engi-neering or Wharton is to business. It is the most selective, as well as the most rigorous school in the disciplines. Less than nine percent of the stu-dents who applied to join the freshman class in 2012 were accepted.

Founded in October, 1905 in New York City as the Institute of Musical Art, Juilliard alumni are among the most accomplished actors, choreogra-phers, recitalists, orchestral and operatic musicians, administrators and teachers. Approximately half of the members of the New York Philhar-monic and the majority of the members of the other Lincoln Center or-chestras are Juilliard alumni. Unlike other conservatories that concen-trate exclusively on music, Juilliard has had a Dance Division since 1951, offering instruction in contemporary and ballet techniques, and a Drama Division since 1968. Notable Juilliard alumni include Robin Wil-liams, Miles Davis, Richard Rodgers, Val Kilmer, Kelsey Grammer, Jes-sica Chastain, Yo-Yo Ma and Viola Davis, among many others. Since 1968 Juilliard has been located within Manhattan’s Lincoln Center arts district, a perfect location for aspiring performing artists to showcase their talents.

Juilliard is a very small (510 full-time undergraduates, 846 full-time gradu-ate students) but very well endowed (around $660 million as of 2010) school. While it easily costs more than $50,000 to attend Juilliard, the av-erage institutional scholarship covers more than 40 percent of the costs.

Background

2 What does it take to get in?Who decides to go?What other schools do applicants consider?

Competition

Fast Facts

1. All three Juilliard divisions: Dance, Drama and Music require auditions, by invitation after a pre-screening.

2. Applicants do not need to submit ACT or SAT scores, though they must show academic excellence in English, the humanities and music as well as their art.

3. For the class that entered in 2012 there were 1,400 applicants for 18 places in the Drama Division. Only one was taken off a waiting list.

4. There were 570 applicants to the Dance Division for 24 places. All 24 accepted students decided to come.

5. Approximately 2,800 students applied to the Music division in 2012 for 300 places in the freshman class. With a yield rate, the percentage of accepted students who decided to come, of 69 percent, the school had to admit just under 400 students in order to fill the class.

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What It Takes to Get In

All three Juilliard divisions: Dance, Drama and Music require auditions, by invitation after a pre-screening.

Dance and drama candidates must submit a video, then they may, or may not receive an opportunity to audition before a faculty panel in one of seven locations: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and of course, New York. For the class that entered in 2012 there were 1,400 applicants for 18 places in the Drama Division. Only one was taken off a waiting list. There were 570 applicants to the Dance Division for 24 places. All 24 accepted students decided to come.

With the exception of high school students who have been active partici-pants in Juilliard’s Saturday Pre-College program, all music candidates who have successfully survived pre-screening (about half are eliminated) must come to New York for auditions while the school is on spring break over eight days. Each prospective student prepares a 15 minute recital on their instrument playing a piece that has been required by the faculty panel. Juilliard does not cover travel expenses. Approximately 2,800 stu-dents applied to the Music division in 2012 for 300 places in the fresh-man class. With a yield rate, the percentage of accepted students who decided to come, of 69 percent, the school had to admit just under 400 students in order to fill the class. Such high yield rates are common only with the U.S. military services academies, the most selective private col-leges and universities and in-state applicants to the most selective public universities.

Competition

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“In music auditions we ask candidates to play substantially more than one piece,” says Lee Cioppa, Juilliard’s Associate Dean of Admissions. “Audition requirements reflect the quality of the school.” Juilliard musi-cians are classically trained, so pieces are more likely to be classical as well as challenging. However, Cioppa adds, “you do not necessarily know how well you have preformed immediately after the audition.”

The 500 candidates for all three divisions who are viewed most favorably by the faculty panels are forwarded to the Admissions Committee, which reviews their academic credentials. Juilliard does not require standard-ized test scores (SATs or ACTs) Students must also write essays, as they do when they apply to more traditional colleges and universities. Flu-ency in the English language is also expected of all students. “Students are not going to take physics or chemistry here,” Cioppa says, “though they are expected to show excellence in English, the humanities and mu-sic.” The academic record must show success for students will take lib-eral arts courses as well as instruction in their art. “If you fail academic classes at Juilliard, you’re flunked out,” she adds. “You can not focus on your art to the determent of academics.” However, she also says that Juil-liard students are very bright. “A lot of them would have made it into a top liberal arts school.”

Acceptances among vocal, composition and instrumental students vary, says Cioppa. For example, there are 600 applicants for a joint Bachelor’s/Master of Fine Arts in Voice. Less than five percent, fewer than 30 students, are offered admission. Out of 200 students who apply to study composition, only 15 were admitted. It is very difficult for an ad-missions office to forecast future enrollments in the Music Division be-cause stable numbers are needed to fill every orchestra.

Students who have applied to the Music Division consider schools that have a conservatory setting such as the Curtis Institute of Music (Phila-delphia, PA), the Manhattan School of Music (New York, NY) and the Ber-klee School of Music (Boston, MA). Applicants also consider colleges and universities that combine a conservatory education with a traditional liberal arts education such as Oberlin (OH), Indiana University-Bloomington, Northwestern University (IL) and the University of Michi-gan. “The choice among conservatories is faculty-driven,” says Cioppa. “You can have a similar experience on the more traditional college cam-puses, but you also have the option to change your mind.”

The decision to choose between a conservatory versus a college or uni-versity is also likely to be based on available extracurricular activities, the social life and the school’s location. Most extracurricular activities at Juilliard are arts related, although the school has a student government as well as a campus newspaper. There are no intercollegiate sports. “Stu-dents must be ready to focus 100 percent on their art,” Cioppa says.

Juilliard admits students on a “need-blind” basis; a student’s financial need is not considered until after s/he is admitted. The school reported on Big Future, the College Board’s search site, that 100 percent of all freshmen who requested aid received it. However, the vast majority did not have their full need met. The average aid package for a first-year stu-dent was approximately $31,000, including scholarships and loans. Given this average package, the average student and their family would be expected to come up with $22,000 outside of Federal student loans such as the Perkins or the Stafford Loan. Then again, the families of stu-dents who are most likely to be admitted to Juilliard have already made considerable investments in dance, dramatic arts or music lessons out-side of a high school education.

3 Freshman Retention RateGraduation Rates

Completion

Fast Facts

1. Seventy percent of entering Juilliard’s freshman go on to finish their education within four years, comparable to a highly regarded liberal arts college.

2. Ninety five percent of freshmen return for their sophomore, again quite comparable to a fine private liberal arts school.

3. Fewer than seven percent of entering undergraduates are transfer students.

4. Dance and Drama programs are four-year degrees. No credits earned at another college will transfer into them. Music students may be admitted as transfers and not lose credits.

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The Path to Graduation

Seventy percent of entering Juilliard’s freshman go on to finish their education within four years, comparable to a highly regarded liberal arts college. Ninety-five percent of freshmen return for their sopho-more, again quite comparable to a fine private liberal arts school.

Fewer than seven percent of entering undergraduates are transfer students. The Dance and Drama programs are four-year degrees. No credits earned at another college will transfer into them. Music students may be admitted as transfers and not lose credits, though they will be tested for competency in music performance, history and theory.

“Our students have usually taken a summer program or private les-sons or they have been in master classes in high school where they have made contact with Juilliard graduates,” says Lee Cioppa, Asso-ciate Dean of Admissions. As a result students are likely to arrive with some idea of who they would like to study under after they ar-rive. “They often audition their instructor when they audition for us,” she adds.

Further, because of the art form, dance students who leave do not leave to go to another school. They leave to join a dance company,” Cioppa says. “They might be invited to join a second-tier company such as Alvin Ailey II, and aspire to the first tier.”

Completion

4 Tuition and FeesScholarshipsNet PricesDebt

Costs

Fast Facts

1. Juilliard charged just over $35,000 for tuition and fees in 2012-13, lower than most highly-regarded private liberal arts colleges and universities as well as lower than out-of-state tuition and fees at several noted public institutions.

2. The average student indebtedness was approximately $24,100, lower than the average borrowed by student borrowers at many public and private universities.

3. 75 percent of aid from Juilliard comes in the form of scholarships or grants versus loans. However, the school met the full need for less than a quarter of its undergraduate students.

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Paying for School

Juilliard charged just over $35,000 for tuition and fees in 2012-13, lower than most highly-regarded private liberal arts colleges and uni-versities, and actually lower than the out-of-state charges at several top state universities including the University of California system, the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. Indiana Univer-sity’s Jacobs School of Music, as another comparison, charged out-of-state students approximately $33,400 in tuition and fees. However, room and board costs on the Bloomington, Indiana campus are about $5,000 less than those for living near Lincoln Center in Manhattan.

While all students must complete the Free Application For Student Aid (FAFSA), more of the assistance is far more likely to come from the institutionthan Federal or state grants. Only 11 percent of Juilliard stu-dents were eligible for the Federal Pell Grant during the 2010-11 school year while only two percent qualified for a state or local scholar-ship.

While every freshman who needed aid received it, the school met, on average, only 78 percent of need, according to Big Future, the College Board’s search site. Less than a quarter of the students who needed aid had their full need met. However, 75 percent of aid from Juilliard comes in the form of scholarships or grants versus loans. The average indebtedness, again according to Big Future, was approximately $24,100. The average is actually lower than it is for many public and private universities, including Indiana.

Costs

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The “value” of a Juilliard education depends in part on the student’s division as well as the opportunities presented. A music student, for example, could pay and borrow less to attend the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (tuition free, with an average indebtedness of just over $17,000), presuming s/he could be admitted. But Curtis had room to admit only 13 degree-seeking freshmen in 2012. The Manhat-tan School of Music charges about the same as Juilliard, although it is less generous with financial aid. However, Manhattan students who take out loans borrow, on average, less than half the amount as Juil-liard student borrowers. Berklee College of Music charges more, but has not reported scholarship or loan information to either the College Board or the Project on Student Debt.

For a dance or drama student, the comparison is more likely to be with a traditional college or university, and there are so many possible comparisons to make. For example, a prospective dance or drama stu-dent who wants to attend school in or around New York City could at-tend either NYU or Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts. In 2011 NYU graduates who took on debt borrowed, on average, more than $36,000 according to the Project on Student Debt. Thirty nine percent of this debt was from sources other than the Federal government; many NYU students took out private loans. However, the Rutgers stu-dents who borrow borrowed. on average, less than $1,000 less than Juilliard students. But only 11 percent of their debts came from a source other than the Federal government.

The major debt to avoid, however, is Parents PLUS Loans. These come at a higher interest rate (7.9 percent) than interest-subsidized (3.4 percent) and unsubsidized (potentially 6.8 percent) Stafford stu-dent loans. While they may be used to cover the entire cost of atten-

dance, Parents PLUS Loans, like Stafford loans, cannot be dis-charged in the event of a bankruptcy.

The Chronicle of Higher Education Parents PLUS loan database had no data for Juilliard. However, larger conservatories such as the Ber-klee School of Music and the Boston Conservatory of Music reported average Parent PLUS loan debts in excess of $30,000 in 2011. It should be noted, however, that the Chronicle database covers schools that had more than 100 parent borrowers in 2011. Given Juilliard’s high percentage of scholarship students as well as international stu-dents, it is likely that few Juilliard parents needed to borrow through the Parent PLUS loan program.

Over the past two years Juilliard has raised tuition and fees by 4.5 per-cent according to College Navigator, the U.S. Department of Educa-tion’s college search site. The previous increase from 2009-10 to 2010-11 was 5.5 percent. Room and board costs increased by 4 per-cent for the 2012-2013 academic year. Planning for an annual cost in-crease of ten percent each year is realistic. However, Juilliard’s schol-arship support as well as high yield rates suggest that the school is willing to help. The school is also in the middle of a $300 million capi-tal campaign through its Second Century Fund to raise more funds for undergraduate academic programs and scholarships, among other things.

5 On-Campus HousingLocal Housing Market

Comforts

Fast Facts

1. Juilliard owns a 13-story suite-style residence hall within the Lincoln Center district.

2. Each five-person suite has two double rooms and one single room.

3. Room and board in the residence hall costs approximately $13,300 for the academic year, high for a college or university, but reasonable considering that Juilliard is located in a neighborhood where 1 bedroom apartments typically rent for more than $4,000 per month.

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Settling In

Juilliard owns a 13-story suite-style residence hall within the Lincoln Cen-ter district. Each five-person suite has two double rooms and one single room. One floor each is all-male and all-female; the rest are co-ed by al-ternating room. It has its own gym and dining hall as well as two practice rooms on each floor. Although each suite has a kitchen, the total costs for on-campus living include a meal plan. All resident students must par-ticipate in at least six Horizons seminars, three in the fall, three in the spring, in order to receive an application for housing for the next aca-demic year. Horizons seminars cover a variety of topics including, but not limited to, leadership, diversity, health, personal finance, communica-tion skills, career exploration, drug/alcohol education, and general life skills. Aside from these seminars there are more than 140 programs in the residence hall each year such as Halloween Haunted House, Mid-night Breakfast, and Market Your Art. Returning students are placed into a housing lottery, the seniors have the highest priority. Incoming students may choose roommates in advance or allow the school to randomly se-lect a roommate.

Room and board in the residence hall costs approximately $13,300 for the academic year, high for a college or university, but reasonable consid-ering that Juilliard is located in a neighborhood where 1 bedroom apart-ments typically rent for more than $4,000 per month. It is possible to live in New York for less after the freshman year though that involves com-muting. Given the day-to-night commitment required of a Juilliard student it may be better to live close to campus.

Comforts

6 CampusEnvironsSchool Spirit

Community

Fast Facts

1. Juilliard students and faculty collectively deliver more than 700 public performances each year.

2. While talent is necessary to succeed at Juilliard, so is a willingness to make friends and appreciate their talents.

3. Juilliard students live in one of the best places from which to explore New York City. The #1 Seventh Avenue subway line travels to Times Square, Penn Station, Wall Street, Tribeca, Greenwich Village and Harlem, among many other places.

4. Juilliard is a crime-free as a college setting can possibly get.

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Life On and Off Campus

While Juilliard is located within an international capital of the performing arts, students are less likely to have free time as they would at a more traditional college or university. Juilliard students and faculty collectively deliver more than 700 public performances each year. The number of opportunities for stu-dents to showcase their talents, even work across disciplines--for example, Dance, Drama and Music students joining to pro-duce a musical production--is astonishing for a school with such a small student population.

Juilliard has five theater spaces as well as an airy and modern dance studio. The Peter J. Sharp Theater, with nearly 1,000 seats, hosts most of the school’s public performances including opera, dance, and orchestra productions, as well as annual electronic music festivals. The Paul Recital Hall, with nearly 300 seats, houses jazz and faculty recitals. Morse Hall is a smaller recital space. The Stephanie P. McClelland Theater, with just over 200 seats, is the main performance space for student dra-matic productions. Juilliard also opened its first black box thea-ter in 2010. The school also has 98 practice rooms and owns 250 Steinway pianos. While performance and practice spaces are ample, they are, in effect, the entire campus outside of the residence hall.

Community

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While the residence hall has a gym, opportunities for serenity will be more limited than they are on a traditional college cam-pus. While talent is necessary to succeed at Juilliard, so is a will-ingness to make friends and appreciate their talents. While Juil-liard students will find facilities where they can practice alone, this is not a campus where it is easy to be alone. Group work is forced on students quickly, and it becomes more intensive in the advanced classes. Students who come lacking social skills must improve upon them quickly.

Juilliard students live in one of the best neighborhoods from which to explore New York City. The Seventh Avenue subway line travels to Times Square, Penn Station, Wall Street, Green-wich Village and Harlem, among many places. While New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority does not grant col-lege student discounts, there is a secondary market for unused portions of unlimited-ride MetroCards on Craig’s List. This is welcome because a 30-day, unlimited-ride MetroCard costs $112 per month. True, that is less than owning a car in a much smaller city such as Bloomington, Indiana, but it does add sig-nificantly to a student’s living costs should s/he decide not to live in the residence hall.

Lincoln Center concert halls and theaters do not grant student discounts. But Juilliard students may get tickets at “rush” prices that are significantly lower than market prices. New York has

long offered outlets for discounted concert, museum, sports and theater tickets at other venues throughout the city.

Juilliard is a crime-free as a college setting can possibly get. Ac-cording to the school’s Clery Report, there was only one bur-glary in 2011 as well as only one disciplinary referral for a drug-related violation. There were no liquor-related arrests, as would be reported on traditional college campus, however, there were ten alcohol-related disciplinary referrals. The workload as well as the small size of the student body contributes to low inci-dence of crime. In addition, the neighborhood is always busy and well patrolled by New York City police. Students spend their college years living in a place that they will need to work many successful years in order to return there as a resident.

7 AcademicsHonors ProgramsExperiential Learning

Curriculum

Fast Facts

1. In addition to the instruction required within their Division, all Juilliard students must take eight liberal arts courses.

2. Four of these courses are required and conducted by Juilliard faculty. The rest may be taken at Juilliard, Barnard College or Columbia University.

3. One-to-one sessions between students and instructors carry five credits, though they involve few contact hours.

4. Orchestras or ensembles carry two credits as well as a minimum of six hours of rehearsals each week.

5. Juilliard students gave their faculty a rating of 3.94 out of a possible 5 on RateMyProfessors.com, very high for any school.

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Academic Opportunities and Options

Entering Music Division students take ear testing as well as placement courses in Music History, Music Theory and Liberal Arts. While it is possi-ble for entering freshmen to receive advanced standing, depending on the division where they are enrolled, it is not possible to enter with cred-its accumulated towards the degree. It is possible for transfer students in the Music Division to apply liberal arts credits to Juilliard’s liberal arts re-quirements.

In addition to the instruction required within their Division, all Juilliard stu-dents must take eight liberal arts courses, the first four being multi-disciplinary in the humanities and social sciences as well as unique to the school. The remaining four courses, limit one per semester, can be taken at Juilliard or at Barnard College or Columbia University, about a half-hour trip by subway. Juilliard requires no courses in math or science to graduate.

Within the Music Division, all students receive one-to-one private instruc-tion with a faculty member each semester. They will work with the same teacher all four years, unless one or the other requests a change. This is perhaps the most demanding part of the degree program. It requires the most work outside of class, although it involves the fewest contact hours with an instructor. These one-to-one sessions carry five credits a term. Orchestras or ensembles carry two credits as well as a minimum of six hours of rehearsals each week. Music Division students take Music The-ory and Music History each year, each class meeting twice per week. These courses, as well as the liberal arts core courses each carry three

Curriculum

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credits. Dance students, for example, meet in an exercise program that runs three times each week, along with their other classes. It is quite pos-sible for a dance student to work a 14-hour day in classes, practice and study.

The junior and senior years are more performance driven, though the workload is more demanding. Unlike a more traditional liberal arts pro-gram, education at Juilliard is cumulative; the learning that goes on in the later classes and performances expands on what you learned over your first two years. Students cannot change majors or take music courses out of sequence as they might at a liberal arts school. Instruc-tion at Juilliard runs in historical sequence. Students learn classical forms (classical music, opera, ballet, Shakespeare as examples) before the have the opportunity to work in modern dance or drama or contempo-rary music. A student who is familiar with classical forms through their pri-vate instruction in high school is more likely to succeed than someone who is not.

Students reserve practice rooms on an informal system: they place their ID in the window of the room they want. A light goes on in each room to remind students that there is only 15 minutes left before another student can take the room. Daytime practice hours (10 AM to 4 PM) are the most desired, Friday nights the least.

Juilliard offers no summer programs and has a relatively short (3 week) winter break compared with most traditional colleges and universities. Nor does the school allow students to live in the residence hall outside of the academic year.

Juilliard offers four Entrepreneurship Programs that complement the cur-riculum while providing students with interesting opportunities to explore

career options as well as pay for their education. The Juilliard Summer Grants Program funds two or three student-directed public service pro-jects, which can be academic or artistic. The Jonathan Madrigano Entre-preneurship Grant provides funds for innovative performance projects, business ventures, and recording projects, among other initiatives. The Juilliard Professional Mentoring Program, the first to be offered by a con-servatory, pairs upper-class and graduate students with faculty mentors who co-develop performing arts education projects with artists in the New York area. Drama Student-Initiated Projects allow students to write an original manuscript then advance it to a budget for fundraising or grant proposals. Educational Outreach Fellowships enable students to provide dance or music instruction and programs in partnering New York City schools.

Juilliard students gave their faculty a rating of 3.94 out of a possible 5 on RateMyProfessors.com, very high for any school. This was about the same as Berklee College of Music students (3.97), Eastman College of Music (3.94) rated their faculty but higher than students at the Curtis Insti-tute of Music (3.68) and the Manhattan School of Music (3.68) rated theirs.

8 Alumni RelationsCareer Services

Connections

Fast Facts

1. Juilliard has more than 12,000 living alumni

2. The largest numbers of young alumni, those less than ten years from their Bachelor’s degree, work in Los Angeles or New York.

3. This is one school where it really pays to be a Student Ambassador.

4. Juilliard’s career services center expects students to think like entrepreneurs and assists alumni in transitions from performer to other fields.

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Building a Network

Being in New York, where most of the school’s 12,000+ alumni reside, Juilliard students are presented numerous opportunities to make connections before they graduate. Music students alone perform in six to eight concerts each year. Venues in-clude Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, both in Lincoln Cen-ter. Juilliard students also participate in summer tours, one ex-ample being a partnership in London with the Royal Academy.

Juilliard has no formal alumni association, although alumni are organized in regional interest groups throughout the world. Alumni are also separated by programs, including those who participated in the Pre-College Program as grade school or high school music students. The largest numbers of young alumni, those less than ten years from their Bachelor’s degree, work in Los Angeles or New York.

Juilliard’s alumni relations office sponsors approximately six events a year on campus called “Lunch with an Alum” where students can meet and have lunch and a casual conversation with notable alumni.  In addition, they have a student leadership group called Student Ambassadors to the Alumni Office (ap-proximately 20 a year). This group is invited to all alumni events

Connections

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and offered the opportunity to have informational interviews (20 minutes) with any alum of their choice.

Juilliard’s career services center expects students to think like entrepreneurs. Students are given advice and instruction in con-tracts, taxes and marketing themselves and their talents through traditional and social media. The bookstore has a sur-prising number of books on business development and motiva-tion for a school that offers no formal business courses. Unlike career centers at more traditional colleges and universities, Juil-liard’s career services center assists alumni with career transi-tions and helping transitioners to identify how skills gained as an artist are transferable to other areas and other industries. They assist with illustrating this transferability in professional materials, in interview situations, and as transitioners conceptu-alize what type of work they might be able to do. The career services center also helps prospective students find vocal or in-strumental instructors from among the students, alumni and fac-ulty to provide private lessons.

These services, combined with the Entrepreneurial Programs discussed in the Curriculum section, are important for creating a network of successful alumni. It is far from unusual for per-forming artists to move into new fields such as arts administra-tion, teaching or talent management where they remain con-nected to their craft. The experience of having been on stage helps to develop others from backstage. Some students have

graduated with the experience of having to raise money to sup-port their art. They can be quite successful as professional fundraisers for a drama or dance company as well as a perform-ing arts center. Neither their craft nor their business skills are likely to be outsourced.

As of this date, Juilliard’s Facebook page has nearly 193,000 “likes.” The school also has almost 8,800 followers on Twitter. Juilliard’s LinkedIn Network has 645 members. A second group, Juilliard Global, has nearly 500.

9 Summing up

Conclusions

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Juilliard is a very special place for extremely talented people. Only those who are motivated, passionate and serious about their craft need apply. Most, no doubt, have already had rigor-ous instruction before their first days in this college setting.

The student who is looking for a “Plan B,” is uncertain of their chance to succeed as a performer, would probably be happier at a traditional college or university. Success requires focus as well as an ability to ignore distractions. Juilliard does not offer the kind of programs where a student can deliver a lax effort and still graduate.

However, this is also a setting where collegiality rules. Students can come in here confident, but they must be willing to accept that they are part of a very talented class. Whether students are assigned to an orchestra or a dramatic production, they must learn to work in groups quickly as well as explore the depths of their own talent. In some cases they are placed in a lead role, in others they are not. Strong egos can bruise quickly.

Juilliard has considerable advantages over other conservato-ries. It has a large endowment, a long history and an expansive alumni network, especially in the classical music and drama community. It is also located in one of the leading performing arts districts in the world. It’s easy for an entering freshman to feel proud as s/he walks by Avery Fisher Hall or Alice Tully Hall on their way to their first classes. Juilliard also has a long rela-

Conclusions

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tionship with the New York City public school system as well as a Pre-College Music Division that are much admired.

While you can learn dance, drama or music at many fine univer-sities, Juilliard is one place where the more serious performers will be more encouraged and less distracted. Juilliard is to the performing arts what MIT is to engineering or Wharton is to busi-ness. It is “the place” you go if you’re serious about dance, drama or music, above all else.

Ed Quest’s Report Card

The Juilliard School

Four-Year/Six-Year

Grad Rates

Freshman Retention

Costs Comforts Community Curriculum Connections

A/Not Applicable

A B+ A A A A

Strengths Weaknesses

Success cultureOnly dance, drama and music programs. Not a

place to earn a liberal arts degree

Alumni baseA very small school with few majors can feel

claustrophobic

Lincoln Center locationIf you don’t intend to make your craft your life look elsewhere. Don’t come here thinking of a

“Plan B.”

Reasonably priced for a privately-supported conservatory

New York is a very expensive place to live if you’re not aggressive enough to find the best

prices

Unequaled opportunities to perform as well as teach

One-to-one instruction for musicians

Career center understands artists’ needs very well

Opportunity to take liberal arts courses at Columbia University--and pay less than

Columbia students

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The End