The Longy School of Music of Bard College

Longy School of Music is a community music school that woke up one day and decided to start giving masters degrees. I went there for my graduate degree to study with a specific teacher, who was wonderful. The program and the curriculum, however, are a total mess. The school does not have any real coursework to speak of, some of the most blatant anti-intellectualism I have ever seen in an academic institution, very few resources to offer its students, and almost no full-time faculty (hardly any with a doctorate in field). Longy needs a complete overhaul, and from what I understand, this is the consensus among the students and alumni. My hopes that Longy's new affiliation with Bard College will give it what it needs to survive are high- but my expectations unfortunately are not.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000

My violin teacher rocked but the rest of the school sucked. The chamber program sucked as something horrible happened each semester, such as a bad coach, rude colleagues, lazy colleagues, etc. Nothing was ever done to remedy these programs even though I spoke numerous times with the head of chamber music about it.

Unfortuately too many Longy teachers act as if students are there to serve their egos. The professors take everything so personally such as students dropping classes or missing a class once. Students, as we all know, do these things all the time and it does not always about the professor teaching the class. Yet Longy professors often scream at students and throw tantrums over these trivial matters. Maybe instead of worrying about themselves and their egos, they should focus on making material interesting so that students will want to come to class. Or perhaps treat students like adults and realize that if certain students don't care enough to come, then why should they care if the student does well. This behavior got old really fast. It's too bad that Longy hires so many such professors because the school has potential to be great. Administrators! Wake up and face reality! Your school needs a complete overhaul!

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000

I do not think I could recommend Longy in good conscience. My main teacher acted in a very unprofessional manner, asking me about my personal life and was an all around unresponsive, unqualified teacher. When my advisor/department head asked me how lessons were going, I said they were okay and she prodded me to speak further. I told her what had happened in lessons in regards to the teacher not being effectual and also being unprofessional and rude. The advisor did not care and simply said, "well, maybe this will help you discover what kind of teacher you want to be."

Great. According to this "advisor," I'm supposed to spend thousands of dollars to study with a crappy teacher to learn how not to teach. The school claims to have a supportive environment, but this was not supportive. In fact, this "advising" was so bad it was comical.I'll never understand those administrators. How can they expect alumni to donate, recommend, and speak well of Longy if this is how they treat students? How can they not expect that word of mouth will eventually come back to bite them? They say they want the school to flourish, but if they act this way they are going to seriously damage the school's reputation in the long run. Very sad, because the school could have a lot of potential.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000