I'm a rising senior at a pretty prestigious LAC, and am planning on applying to about ten PhD programs in music theory this fall. I'm pursuing a BM in Music Education/Piano Performance and a BA in Psychology, and my main area of interest for research is music cognition. Grade-wise, I have a 4.0 GPA for each of my majors and a 3.99 GPA overall. I took an independent study last fall with a music theory professor where I wrote two short (~20 page) papers to serve as writing samples for graduate school, and I'm currently in the process of writing my senior honors thesis which I hope can also be a writing sample (but only for the programs that allow you to submit an entire thesis). My GRE scores are 160V, 150Q, and 4.5AW (not great, I know, but I'm hoping my GPA carries more weight than these scores). I now have my entire thesis committee finalized, so I'm hoping that my advisor and readers will all agree to write letters of recommendation for me.
Here is my current list of schools: Eastman, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Northwestern, CUNY, Chicago, Michigan, WUSTL
Can anyone give me any feedback on what my odds are of getting in at least one of these programs? I know that I'm applying to all fully-funded PhD programs, but I've had to pay for undergrad completely out of pocket with no scholarships (and no real financial aid at all, besides loans), so it's really important that grad school does not cost any additional money (I'm still up to my neck in loans for undergrad).
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pianoman2022
Hi everyone!
I'm a rising senior at a pretty prestigious LAC, and am planning on applying to about ten PhD programs in music theory this fall. I'm pursuing a BM in Music Education/Piano Performance and a BA in Psychology, and my main area of interest for research is music cognition. Grade-wise, I have a 4.0 GPA for each of my majors and a 3.99 GPA overall. I took an independent study last fall with a music theory professor where I wrote two short (~20 page) papers to serve as writing samples for graduate school, and I'm currently in the process of writing my senior honors thesis which I hope can also be a writing sample (but only for the programs that allow you to submit an entire thesis). My GRE scores are 160V, 150Q, and 4.5AW (not great, I know, but I'm hoping my GPA carries more weight than these scores). I now have my entire thesis committee finalized, so I'm hoping that my advisor and readers will all agree to write letters of recommendation for me.
Here is my current list of schools: Eastman, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Northwestern, CUNY, Chicago, Michigan, WUSTL
Can anyone give me any feedback on what my odds are of getting in at least one of these programs? I know that I'm applying to all fully-funded PhD programs, but I've had to pay for undergrad completely out of pocket with no scholarships (and no real financial aid at all, besides loans), so it's really important that grad school does not cost any additional money (I'm still up to my neck in loans for undergrad).
Thanks in advance!
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