Unlikely! I'm in Samuel Adler's studio, this guy is my IDOL he wrote the bestest orchestration book EVAR.

The composition department has four teachers (Adler, Corigliano, Beaser, Rouse) and I guess 6 - 10 in each studio, no idea of the exact numbers.

Heheheh thanks :P

"Born in 1990, he has been referred to as 'genius' by colleagues..."

Man, composer bios are so pretentious these days.

Yeah man, I was thinking about writing this piece that's like totally silent you know. Totally radical and genius.

"reinvigorating your inner reinvigoration!"

heheheh, thanks for that ;)

Room and board is expensive because of location but tuition is actually pretty reasonable, about as much as my highschool (which admittedly is private and pretty damn expensive, but for college tuition that amount is quite reasonable).

If you're looking at film scoring definitely look at the conservatory composition programs in the US, but there's also the Pacific Northwest Film Scoring program and some conservatories like the USC Thornton school have film scoring programs. All stuff worth looking into, keep me posted in the future!

I looked at Eastman, New England Conservatory, Oberlin Conservatory, Bard College/Conservatory dual degree, and Peabody. Grats on the composition camp! Summer music camps are a fantastic experience, be sure to make the most of it.

All very valid questions that I'm happy to answer! I'll go backwards:

The application process is usually two step; prescreening and interview. First you send in your general application, optionally with SAT or ACT scores, with a portfolio of your compositions, including score and CD (the specifications for each school are different so it's good to check each individually). At this point, some schools, such as Juilliard, make a cut-off at the prescreening and if you don't pass that's it, whereas other schools (such as Peabody) invite back every applicant for an interview. At a school that made a cut-off, your interview is likely to be quite in depth and intense because they can spend more time on fewer people; if every applicant was invited the interview will be much shorter because they don't have as much time to spend on everybody.

It's important to note that some schools, such as Indiana and Michigan, require an instrumental audition as well if you're applying for composition, but most tend not to.

My interview at Juilliard was incredibly intense; three interviews, two individually with two of the composition faculty and one with the other two members of the faculty together. Before going into your interview, us applicants got our application handed back to us with all of the original materials we had sent (plus we were asked to bring two new scores). The first interview was with John Corigliano who was incredibly nice, listened to a lot of music (from CD and stuff I played on the piano), made a couple comments, and sent me to: Sam Adler who asked me to name five American composers of the early 20th century who were influential in piano writing and then had me name intervals, notes, and chord progressions (in roman numerals), then listened to two movements of piece, made a comment, and sent me to my next interview with: Robert Beaser and Christopher Rouse, the latter of whom asked me to describe Bartok's life and influence and colleagues while Beaser looked through my scores.

Juilliard is essentially the highest quality performing arts school, on average, for undergrad. This means competition, high expectations, and lots of work. Many of the students spend hours on end in practice rooms, but on the flip side this means intense partying too because they need to release somehow. I get the impression that Juilliard is working to improve social life and have a friendlier image, but this doesn't change their standards. I think what's true of Juilliard that's true of any college is that there are the crazy overachievers, the ego maniacs, but then the genuinely interesting and friendly people. It's important to note that Juilliard is a very small world and thus very close minded so you have to stay in the music scene elsewhere and keep in touch with the outside word.

In terms of composition, it's classical in the broadest sense but diverse stylistically within that. Famous minimalists and famous neo-romantics have gone to Juilliard, even quite recently (see: Nico Muhly and Eric Whitacre). My personal intention is to teach theory and composition as a career with composing as a social hobby, but composition can also be applied in the field of film or even game scoring, or you can try to be an independent composer (which is virtually impossible), or you can go get a masters in business and actually have an income. Possibilities are not limited by attending Juilliard for undergrad.

All I can say is don't plan your college applications on the expectation of getting into incredibly competitive schools like Juilliard (I know a violinist who only applied to Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music and got rejected from both, which left her in a difficult situation). It could well be worth a shot, though! Good luck with everything and keep me posted.

Theory never hurts; the AP course is a good idea. Good luck again!!

Hahah thank you! Yeah the experience was intense, kind of awesome tho. ;)

Not my private teacher but I might well end up having classes with him, he's an amaaazing composer. Really nice guy too!!

We'll exchange pieces every so often and play 'em, it sounds like a great plan.