Anonymous wrote:OP here: We only consider UMD at this point because it's instate tuition, and offers music ensembles and science labs on one campus. UMD offers Bachelor of Art in Piano (requires 51 Music credits) and Bachelor of Music in Piano (requires 74 Music credits). The BA degree requires much less "Music" credits than the BM degree.

DD does not want to be a professional musician, but very fascinated with classical music and wants to study the subject.
The idea of taking up a BA instead of BM was to free up selective credits. DD will need to pick up ~38 pre-med. credits, and ~48 core credits in order to obtain a BA and be able to apply Medical school. It bring the total credit required to ~137. However, some of the pre-med cr. fulfill core requirements, and some of her high school credits will be transferred as college credits. We need to sit down with a counselor to nail down the exact courses.

I'm leaning toward the Piano major instead of Violin major because piano is mostly a solo instrument and does not need to attend many afternoon ensemble sessions which will conflict with the afternoon science lab sessions.

It seems like a working plan, but is there anything I didn't think of and make this plan too hard to go through?

Anonymous wrote:How many years is she willing to be an undergrad?

Anonymous wrote:It would be quite tough, and unless you kid wants to be a professional musician, it really doesn't make all that much sense to major in instrument performance and try to be premed. The time constraints of trying to meld a schedule of laboratory science requirements along with all the required practice/orchestra/chamber music and theory classes would be very challenging. And depending on the school, one can continue to study/play very seriously without actually being a conservatory student, i.e. find a great teacher, keep playing in an orchestra, although being a music major in a non-conservatory program plus premed would be doable. I went to college with Yo Yo Ma and Lynn Chang at Harvard. Ma was not a music major! But clearly his musical career didn't suffer. Chang was premed but an incredible violinist who played a lot of chamber music with Yo Yo. Lots of my DD's friends were super serious musicians before college, but chose the non-performance major route but still play incredibly well and seriously as an avocation in college, continue to study with conservatory teachers, etc. Have to choose carefully though, some big schools with strong conservatories do not permit double majoring, and if you are not in the conservatory can't play in the top orchestra or chorus because spots "saved" for conservatory students. This was true at Rice, USC, big 10 programs (Michigan, Indiana), but places like Oberlin and Northwestern are more welcoming to dual majors or non-music majors playing in top ensembles if they are good enough. Most of the Ivys, particularly HYP and Columbia are full of serious musicians, and their orchestras are surprisingly good, and many students continue to study with great teachers associated with NYC or Boston conservatories.