Contemporary Music

Discover your best-fit colleges for contemporary & popular music performance

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Contemporary Music

Contemporary Music Student

Class of 2024

97%

Accepted to top-5 choice school

82%

Accepted to top-3 choice school

9+ years

Music College
Consulting

How We Help Contemporary Performers

At Music School Central, our services are designed to help musicians get into the best colleges for their future. These include the following:

Personalized List of Schools

We offer personalized guidance for contemporary and popular music students, assisting them in crafting a tailored list of schools based on their musical preferences, career aspirations, and academic background.

By considering factors such as faculty expertise, industry connections, and program offerings, Music School Central helps students find the perfect fit for their musical journey.

Audition Evaluation

We provide individualized coaching and resources to help contemporary and popular music students prepare for auditions.

This includes tailored feedback, repertoire selection assistance, and mock audition experiences to showcase their unique talents and maximize their chances of success in the audition process.

Complete Application Support

We provide personalized guidance and support for contemporary performers navigating the college application process.

This includes guidance with crafting compelling essays & resume that showcase your musical journey, achievements, and aspirations, ultimately maximizing your chances of admission to top music schools.

Interview Preparation

You will receive tailored coaching and mock interview sessions to help you prepare confidently for college admissions interviews.

With this consulting, you can ensure that you will be able to articulate your musical passions, experiences, and future goals with poise and clarity.

1-on-1 Guidance

We offer individualized, 1-on-1 guidance and frequent meetings to navigate every aspect of the application process, from selecting schools to crafting compelling applications, ensuring each student’s unique musical journey is effectively communicated to admissions committees

Choosing the Best College for Contemporary Music

For a contemporary music performer seeking to further their education and artistic development, we consider several key factors when we help you assemble your list of music schools:

1. Faculty expertise & reputation


We help you look for programs with faculty members who are active musicians, producers, songwriters, or industry professionals with experience and connections in the contemporary music scene.


Their expertise in popular & contemporary music can provide you with invaluable mentorship and networking opportunities.

2. Performance opportunities

We help you seek programs that offer ample opportunities for live performance, studio recording, and collaboration with other musicians.

Performance experiences in diverse settings helps you develop your skills and build your portfolios.

3. Curriculum

We evaluate a school’s curriculum to ensure it covers a wide range of topics relevant to contemporary music, including songwriting, music production, performance techniques, music business, and audio engineering.

Some famous music schools do not have specializations in popular music, so we’ll help you check the curricula to make sure the school has what you want to study.

4. University vs. conservatory

Choosing between a university and a conservatory for popular music performers depends on your career goals and educational preferences.

Conservatories offer intense, performance-focused training with a singular focus on music, while colleges provide a broader academic experience with opportunities to explore other disciplines alongside music.

Considering your priorities in performance training, academic balance, and overall environment, we help you determine whether conservatories, universities, or a mix of both is best for you.

5. Career preparation

We guide you through investigating schools with entrepreneurial ventures in music, such as music marketing, artist management, music production, and self-publishing.

Empowering students to navigate the business side of the music industry is essential for long-term success.

Contemporary Music Acceptances

Students interested in contemporary performance, songwriting, and/or music production were accepted into the following schools in the last two years:

  • University of Southern California
  • Belmont University
  • Elon University
  • Johns Hopkins University
  • Berklee College of Music
  • New York University
  • Indiana University
  • Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts
  • University of Miami
  • University of Michigan
  • University of Oregon
  • Los Angeles College of Music
  • University of Southern California
  • Berklee College of Music
  • University of Miami
  • Belmont University
  • New York University
  • University of Michigan
  • Elon University
  • Indiana University
  • University of Oregon
  • Johns Hopkins University
  • Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts
  • Los Angeles College of Music

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

Contact us for a free, zero-obligation consultation

Schedule a Free 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 auditions, interviews, portfolios, pre-screenings, and more. 



On the traditional application side, we guide students through essays, the resume, the common application, 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, offer 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 specifically for colleges, we do not limit the number of essays we will review and provide guidance on.

Not many, and seats often go quickly, which is why we sometimes have a waitlist up. We work with only enough students to make sure everyone gets ongoing 1-on-1 advising with Bill and other members of his team. This number is typically 25 – 40 per year.

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.