Jazz Performance

Find the right college or conservatory program for your future in jazz

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Jazz Performance

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 Jazz Performers

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

Personalized List of Schools

We assist jazz musicians in identifying their ideal music schools based on individual preferences, career goals, and artistic aspirations.

We consider your musical skill level, reputable faculty to work with at different colleges, and more when designing your “right-fit” list of schools.

Audition Evaluation

We provide tailored coaching and support to help jazz musicians prepare confidently for their auditions.

This includes personalized feedback, repertoire selection assistance, and mock audition experiences to optimize your performance & showcase your skills to prospective music schools.

Complete Application Support

We provide personalized guidance and support for jazz students 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 your unique musical journey is effectively communicated to admissions committees.

Choosing the Best College for Jazz

For a Jazz 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 schools with faculty members who are accomplished jazz performers, educators, and composers.

Their expertise and connections within the jazz community can provide invaluable mentorship and networking opportunities.

2. Performance opportunities

We help you seek out schools that offer a robust jazz performance program, including opportunities to perform in small combos, big bands, and solo settings.

Regular gigs, jam sessions, and concerts allow you to gain practical experience and develop your improvisational skills.

3. Community & networking

We collaborate with you when discovering the community and networking opportunities within each school’s jazz program.

A supportive and inclusive environment encourages collaboration, creativity, and lifelong connections with fellow musicians and industry professionals.

4. University Vs. Conservatory

Choosing between a college and a conservatory for jazz musicians depends on your career goals and educational preferences.  

Conservatories offer intense, performance-focused training with a singular focus on the arts, 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 to make the best decision for your musical journey, we help you determine whether conservatories, universities, or a mix of both is best for you.

5. Career preparation

We guide you through Investigating the career support services offered by each school, including on- and off-campus gigging opportunities, career counseling, and assistance with professional development. A strong emphasis on career preparation equips jazz musicians with the skills and resources needed to pursue successful and fulfilling careers in music.

Class of 2024 Jazz Acceptances

Students from our class of 2024 were accepted into some of the best colleges for jazz performance, including:

Eastman School of Music
Berklee College of Music
Columbia University
The New School

Northwestern University
New York University
University of Southern California
New England Conservatory

University of Michigan
Manhattan School of Music
University of North Texas
Indiana University

Eastman School of Music
Northwestern University
University of Michigan
Berklee College of Music
New York University
Manhattan School of Music
Columbia University
University of Southern California
University of North Texas
The New School
New England Conservatory
Indiana University

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

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Frequently asked questions

We work with three kinds of musicians.

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, 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.