It’s hard not to be impressed by Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music.
Here is a school that, located far and away from the east coast “mecca” of music schools that are Boston and New York, has carved a name for itself in perhaps the nations’s most important music city, Nashville.
Four years ago, Vanderbilt University became famously known as a “no-loan” institution, meaning the school will pay for any unmet financial need of families accepted.
Over the last several years, Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music has additionally partnered with some of the most renowned musical institutions, including the Berlin Philharmonic.
Since then, their music school has achieved an acceptance rate of 20%.
Wanting to get to know Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music on an intimate level, I recently sat down with their Director of Admissions, Thomas Crespo.
In our conversation, I asked Thomas how is Blair different?
Why should students choose Vanderbilt over other schools?
What are the advantages of being in Nashville, of all places?
The following is my interview with Thomas about Blair…
BILL: You recently talked to me about very interesting going-ons at Vanderbilt. What initiatives has Vanderbilt taken to improve its education?
THOMAS: Both the music school and the university have started to put an emphasis on the overall student experience rather than only the classroom experience.
Our campus has been historically a residential campus, but over the past 6 years, we have been developing living-learning communities within the campus.
In one example, we have all the freshmen live in one area of the campus. We do this to introduce the students to the university, rather than sending them straight into the overall experience.
We want to approach all the different angles of the student’s experience, rather than just the classroom.
For instance, there are faculty members that live among students on the freshmen campus as heads of houses. This allows students to develop a mentorship with the faculty right away, rather than waiting until their sophomore or junior year to create close relationships, which helps to create intellectual conversations outside of the classroom.
BILL: How would you say this is different from faculty’s relationships with students in other music schools?
THOMAS: Within the music school, faculty go above and beyond with extra lessons, more time spent in rehearsal settings, being both performance & academic advisors to the music students.
It is a small school in terms of number of students, but for the number of students, there is a large number of faculty.
Due to this favorable student-teacher ratio, there are a number of unique ways our faculty interact with our students.
Four years ago, Vanderbilt committed itself to becoming a “no-loan institution.” How is this impacting student life?
This is something continuing to evolve.
In general, when a student applies for financial aid, there are student loans that are a part of the financial aid package they receive.
At Vanderbilt, we meet any demonstrated need that a family has and match it dollar-for-dollar in grants funding – no loans.
This makes our financial aid program unique since students receiving aid would never have to pay anything back to the university for the assistance they receive.
How do you think your no-loan approach will affect students choosing schools best for them?
I think music students and their families are becoming more and more conscience of the financial aid factors, especially for undergraduate programs.
This is often a top issue or consideration a student and family has.
Our school is trying to make a commitment to be as affordable as possible – it can only be a positive in the end.
You have a very interesting ranking that is unconventional. The Princeton Review says Vanderbilt has the “happiest” students for four out of five years. What do you think makes Vanderbilt the happiest school?
It’s partially the residential component, that everyone has to live on campus. The faculty also play a role; they are so invested into the students and ensuring their experience is a great one.
The student life itself – the extracurriculars in and out of the music school – EVERYONE participates in them.
They do not have to travel off-campus to go to a sporting event, a chamber rehearsal, a student organization meeting, or to even practice.
Yes, we are trying to find a talented student.
Yes, we are trying to find an academically motivated student.
But we are also looking for a student that adds to our campus culture.
Now, that doesn’t mean we have one single “ideal model” of a student…
We are looking for students that can bring something to the campus that we do not have yet, or an idea that is engaging and new.
Another unique thing about our music school is that our audition process showcases what the students and student life in our school are like.
Literally, everyone in the student body volunteers.
Our students walk prospective students to their auditions, talk to them about our programs.
It is a testament to how invested the students are into their school, and a reflection of how invested our school is to our students.
On the next page, we talk about what kind of student Vanderbilt is best suited for…
Perhaps the number one consideration for parents and students is finding a school that is going to be “the right-fit” school. What student is Vanderbilt the right-fit for in your opinion?
In my opinion, it is a motivated student.
It is a competitive program, but meant for a student willing to push themselves without being detrimental to the progress of others.
I wouldn’t call it the “cutthroat” type of competitiveness…
Vanderbilt is the right-fit for a student who is actively engaged in learning both musically and otherwise…
A student who brings a different background, or unique thought process that helps our campus continue to grow…
A student who is open to new experiences…
The biggest thing though?
Someone who is a great community member.
Blair and Vanderbilt have a strong sense of community. Yes, we are focused on the musical and academic experiences of a student, but, it is community that we feel is perhaps the biggest thing you will get out of an undergraduate experience.
Vanderbilt is interesting. It’s located in Nashville, which is one of the major music markets in the US. Would you say this is an advantage for your students?
It’s quite a huge advantage.
It is surprising how many performance opportunities there are for students in Nashville.
Sure, in LA and NYC, there are performance opportunities. But in those cities, because of how many classical musicians live there, it is more difficult to get performance opportunities of any significance.
Whereas in Nashville, it’s not uncommon for students to perform with the Nashville Symphony.
“Music Row” is right next to our campus, where all the major record label headquarters are, in addition to the Performing Rights Organizations ASCAP, BMI, SESAC.
Our students have gone on tour with Kanye West, Michael Buble, Taj Mahal & Keb Mo, and many others.
These are just a few of the experiences they get just because of the city we are in and the nature of the music industry in Nashville.
Lots of jazz opportunities, religious music opportunities…
Students can open themselves up to the opportunities of the city as well as those on our campus.
We find that many music students are able to piece together a career in Nashville after they graduate because of the sheer amount of work available in this music city.
Your school has created something interesting lately called the Blair Latin-American Initiatives and Resources. What is the fundamental idea behind this program and are you actively pushing for diversity?
Blair has historically done these types of collaborative programs so that our students can be involved in areas outside of the US with music-making opportunities.
The Royal School of Music program in London has been going on since 2007.
We also have a program that originally started off as a residency with the Berlin Philharmonic. We send students each summer to work with members of the Berlin Phil in Aix-en-Provence France.
This new program was born out of organic interest that many of our faculty have in Latin-American music.
We just recently hired a new trumpet professor, for example, who is very active in this genre of music. Our wind ensemble conductor leads summer programs in Latin America.
Both in Blair and in Vanderbilt, we strive for a diverse student body. We want students to succeed regardless of their background, and find that our student population learn off of each other’s backgrounds and experiences.
Our dean is wonderful at finding opportunities outside of a student’s normal on-campus experience, allowing these students to bring back something to our community that will help all of us to continue to grow.
Vanderbilt is an undergraduate-only music school. Why should a student consider attending an undergraduate-only school?
In some schools, students work primarily with graduate student instructors or teaching assistants in their first few years on campus. Our students however are fortunate to always work with faculty members from day one.
We don’t have graduate teaching assistants or student instructors…even non-music majors work with our music faculty!
There’s never a point in a music class, lesson, or ensemble in which a student doesn’t work with faculty.
ALL of the performance opportunities are just for undergraduates.
Our operas for instance…
At bigger schools, an undergraduate would probably never have a lead role in an opera.
But at Vanderbilt, ONLY undergraduates would get these opportunities.
We put on over 400 performances a year…
If students want to perform nearly every day, they can make that possible without having graduate students seize the larger opportunities.
Thomas…Jobs come and go. Deans come in and out. Students enroll and graduate. One day, when you are no longer Director of Admissions at Vanderbilt, be it in 5 years or 50 years, what would you like to have left behind?
Quite simply, it is this…
I want to Blair to continue to instantly be on students’ radars.
That Vanderbilt, now and in the future, is a school everyone should consider.
Getting the word out there about our amazing program, our amazing school, our amazing people in this unbelievably warm, close community…
