Get Accepted Into Your Right-Fit College for Music

We help music students find & get into their “right-fit” colleges with 1-on-1 guidance.

Get Accepted Into Your Right-Fit College for Music

At a Glance

95%

Accepted to top-5 choice school

300+

Musicians we have worked with

9+ years

Music College Consulting

Expert College Guidance for Music Students

At Music School Central, we understand that gaining admission into top music programs requires more than just talent.

In today’s competitive landscape, standing out is crucial.

We specialize in helping you showcase your unique strengths and background when you apply to college. We guide you through every aspect of the application process, from selecting your “right-fit” colleges to preparing auditions, interviews, & portfolios.

Our approach focuses on strategic positioning, ensuring each element of the application—from essays and recommendation letters to your resume and interviews—resonates with what colleges are seeking.

We have personally helped hundreds of students secure admissions to prestigious music programs worldwide. We empower students from all musical backgrounds to “compose” their path to their dream college.

College acceptances

Music School Central has a successful track record of helping music students gain admission into the best colleges, universities, and conservatories worldwide. Here are just some of the schools our students have been accepted into for the last three years.

  • Bard College
  • Boston University
  • Columbia University
  • Indiana University
  • Manhattan School of Music
  • New England Conservatory
  • Oberlin College
  • Royal College of Music
  • University of California
  • University of Miami
  • Vanderbilt University
  • Berklee College of Music
  • Brown University
  • Eastman School of Music
  • Johns Hopkins University
  • New York University
  • Northeastern University
  • Pepperdine University
  • The New School
  • University of Cincinnati
  • University of Southern California
  • Boston Conservatory
  • Carnegie Mellon University
  • Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Liverpool Institute (LIPA)
  • Northwestern University
  • The Juilliard School
  • Royal Academy of Music
  • Tufts University
  • University of Michigan
  • University of Virginia
  • Bard College
  • Berklee College of Music
  • Boston Conservatory
  • Boston University
  • Brown University
  • Carnegie Mellon University
  • Columbia University
  • Eastman School of Music
  • Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Indiana University
  • Johns Hopkins University
  • Liverpool Institute (LIPA)
  • Manhattan School of Music
  • New York University
  • Northwestern University
  • New England Conservatory
  • Northeastern University
  • The Juilliard School
  • Oberlin College
  • Pepperdine University
  • Royal Academy of Music
  • Royal College of Music
  • The New School
  • Tufts University
  • University of California
  • University of Cincinnati
  • University of Michigan
  • University of Miami
  • University of Southern California
  • University of Virginia
  • Vanderbilt University

How we help you get into college

1. Identify your best-fit colleges

2. Evaluate & guide your musicianship

3. Standing out in your applications

Check out what our students say

Our talented students have been accepted into amazing colleges. Hear what they have said about working with us.

Ashley S. – Classical Performance

Notable Acceptances: Manhattan School of Music, Oberlin, NYU

Shaurya S. – Music Production

Notable Acceptances: Johns Hopkins University, Berklee, Drexel

Sammi W. – Songwriting

Notable Acceptances: University of Southern California, Belmont University

Reagan D. – Contemporary Performance

Notable Acceptances: Berklee, USC, University of Miami

More words from parents

See these testimonials on LinkedIn and others on our Trustpilot page.

Meet Bill, musician 
& college consultant

Meet Bill, musician 
& college consultant

Bill Zuckerman has guided nearly 300+ families through college admissions

Bill Zuckerman is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where he studied music.

Since starting Music School Central, Inc. in 2015, he has personally helped hundreds of music students from over a dozen countries get into music colleges in the US, Canada, and Europe.

All students at Music School Central work personally with Bill.

Why Music School Central

Applications to colleges rise substantially every year, making music programs more competitive than ever. At many universities, there are majors in music accepting just 3-10 students per year out of hundreds of applications!

Every musician has unique challenges & requirements. What may work well for a classical performer will be different than what a producer, songwriter, or jazz musician will need.

Music School Central is one of the only companies in the world that deeply specializes in helping students of all kinds of music & academic backgrounds.

With nearly a decade of experience working with 100s of musicians, we know exactly what college programs are looking for in their prospective students. We’ll guide you in your applications, assess your musicianship, and help you market yourself as an outstanding applicant!

Who We Advise

We work with performers, composers, and producers interested in virtually every genre of music

Let’s help you get into the college of your dreams!

Contact us for a free, zero-obligation consultation

Frequently asked questions

We work with three kinds of students.

1. Musicians who wish to major in music.


2. Musicians who wish to major in music and an outside major.


3. Musicians who wish to major in an academic subject, but want to use their musical background & credentials to help them get accepted into a great college.



As long as you are a musician with at least a few years of experience, we can help you.

We help students with every single part of the college application process.

On the music side, we guide students with college & faculty selection, auditions, interviews, portfolios, pre-screenings, trial lessons, and more.

On the traditional application side, we guide students through essays, the resume, the common application, other applications like the UC (California) and UCAS (United Kingdom) applications, etc.

We surveyed every student & family we worked with in the class of 2024 after they received all of their offers, asking them whether they were accepted to a top-1, top-2, top-3, top-4, top-5, or not a top-5 choice school.

The survey was not mandatory for students who applied to only 1 school and were accepted, such as early decision students. They were automatically counted as a “top-1” choice.

Students who chose to opt for a gap year instead of finishing the application & audition process were excluded from the survey.

Anyone who did not respond to the survey was counted as “not accepted into a top-5 choice school,” unless they wrote to us about being accepted into a top choice school in a separate message.

Overall, we are VERY proud of the success of our students in the class of 2024, with over 95% of them getting accepted into a top-5 choice school!

Yes – he studied music at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre, and Dance.

The great majority of our students are offered merit scholarships when they receive their admissions offers.

When schools are evaluating a candidate for scholarships, they look at the factors we provide guidance on – auditions, essays, portfolios, resume, etc.

Also, some schools are simply more generous than others when offering merit scholarship, and we can help you figure out which ones are most likely to award scholarship based on our experience.

Finally, we can provide guidance on negotiating for scholarships at the end of the admission process, once all of your acceptance letters and initial scholarship offers are released.

While we 100% cannot guarantee scholarships, we can report that the majority of our students in the classes of 2023 and 2024 were offered multiple 5-fgure per year merit scholarships.

At this time, we are only offering our full-service package, as we believe that results in the best admissions & scholarship outcomes for students. We may, in the future, ofer a la carte services.

Absolutely not. We’ve had students apply to 1 school (usually early decision situations), and we had a student once apply to 32 schools.

The right number, for most people, is 8-12 schools.

As long as the essays are specifcally for colleges, we do not limit the number of essays we will review and provide guidance on.

We do work with master’s degree-seeking musicians.

While the majority of our clients are high schoolers and transfer students, we very much enjoy working with older students. We currently do not work with students applying to doctoral degrees.