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BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC
Berklee College of Music, founded in 1945, is an independent music college in Boston, Massachusetts with many prominent faculty, staff, alumni, and visiting artists. It has an enrollment of approximately 3,800 students and a faculty of approximately 430 (as of 2004). Berklee offers a fully accredited four-year baccalaureate degree or diploma. Degree program tuition is approximately $20,350 for the fall through spring academic year (as of 2004).
Berklee College of Music is not to be confused with the University of California's Berkeley campus.
History
Berklee was founded by Lawrence Berk and was originally named Schillinger House of Music, after his teacher Joseph Schillinger. The original purpose of the school was to teach the Schillinger System of musical harmony and composition. After expansion of the school's curriculum in 1954, Berk changed the name to Berklee School of Music after his son Lee Berk and as a pun on the name of the famous University of California, Berkeley (the two schools are often misunderstood to be affiliated or the part of the same institution). When the school received its accreditation, the name was changed to Berklee College of Music in 1973. Lee Berk never formally studied music, instead focusing on Business and Real Estate Law, however his daughter Lucy Berk is an alumna of the college.
At the time of its founding, almost all music schools focused primarily on classical music. The original mission of Berklee was to provide formal training in jazz, rock, and other contemporary music not available at other music schools.
Admission requirements for applicants include a minimum two years of formal music study on their primary instrument and/or significant practical experience in musical performance, a diploma from an accredited secondary school with satisfactory marks in college-preparatory courses, and, for degree candidates only, satisfactory scores on either the SAT, ACT, or TOEFL (for international students). As of the 2006 Summer and Fall semesters the additional requirement of knowledge of written music fundamentals was added.[1] This is a change from the school's open-admittance policy it used for many years. Berklee's acceptance rate for prospective students is now 57% while the acceptance rate for transfer students is 53%.[2]
In February 2006, several students got together and organized Berklee's first official athletic club, a hockey team. The Berklee hockey team is expected to play in the New England Senior Hockey League in the 2006-2007 season, and in the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) in 2007-2008. The team practices in Rockland and West Roxbury. The team's debut will be on September 16, 2006, against Emerson College for the inaugural Boylston Cup.
Demographics and statistics
Berklee has the largest percentage of undergraduate students from outside the U.S.—26 percent—representing more than 70 countries[citation needed]. Women comprise 24.6 percent of the student body. Domestic minority enrollment is African-American, 6.4 percent; Hispanic, 5.5 percent; Asian-American, 4.1 percent. The five countries that supply the largest percentage of foreign students to Berklee are Japan, Korea, Germany, Switzerland, and Brazil. The school's current president, Roger H. Brown, was inaugurated in 2004.
Berklee offers three full time semesters per year: Fall, Spring, and an accelerated twelve week summer program. (Compared to the regular sixteen weeks for Fall and Spring.)
There are 230 acoustic pianos and more than 1,000 guitar principals at Berklee. The average class size is 11. The holdings of the college's Stan Getz Media Center and Library include more than 11,500 recordings, 20,000 books, 17,000 musical scores, and 6,000 lead sheets.
Facilities
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