The Juilliard School

Private · Elite · NY

Photo: D. Benjamin Miller (CC0)

School data & stats

TypePrivate

LocationNY · Northeast

SettingUrban

Undergrads468

Student:faculty4:1

Outcomes

4-yr grad rate85.1%

6-yr grad rate92.6%

Drop-out rate2.1%

Study abroad—

Cost

In-state tuition$58k

Out-of-state tuition$58k

Application fee—

Community

Racial diversity70.9%

Gender diversity45.5%

International31.6%

Identity—

Overview

Juilliard is a specialized conservatory at Lincoln Center in New York City, organized into three divisions — Dance, Drama, and Music — training performers at an elite level. It does not function like a traditional college: there are no unrelated majors or broad general-education requirements, and admission depends almost entirely on a rigorous live audition rather than academic credentials or test scores.

Academics

Coursework centers on the student's discipline — an instrument, voice, dance technique and choreography, or acting and playwriting — supplemented by music theory, history, and a slimmer set of liberal arts requirements, some of which students fulfill through a long-standing academic exchange arrangement with Columbia University. Class sizes within a given studio or ensemble are extremely small, and students work directly and repeatedly with faculty who are themselves working professional artists rather than career academics.

Campus & student life

Life at Juilliard is intensely focused on craft — rehearsals, practice rooms, and performances dominate the schedule far more than typical undergraduate social life. Located at Lincoln Center, students are steps from the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic and regularly cross paths with those institutions professionally, and the small, deliberately narrow student body creates a tight-knit, dedicated community built around shared discipline rather than campus traditions.

Getting in

Admission is built around live audition, not test scores or a conventional application essay — the audition is the primary evidence of readiness, judged by faculty in the applicant's specific discipline, often after an initial recorded pre-screening. Acceptance is highly selective and entirely discipline-specific, meaning a strong dancer and a strong violinist are evaluated in completely separate processes with separate standards.

After graduation

Alumni populate major orchestras, opera companies, dance companies, Broadway, and film and television production worldwide — the alumni network is unusually concentrated in the performing arts industries themselves rather than spread across many fields, and professional connections often form during school through faculty who are active performers.

Worth knowing

This is not a fit for students who want breadth or the flexibility to change majors — a Juilliard education is built entirely around one artistic discipline chosen before enrollment, and switching disciplines afterward is rare. Its size is intentionally small, and life outside rehearsal and practice can feel narrower than at a comprehensive university, though the Columbia exchange gives some access to a broader academic and social world.

juilliard.edu ↗

Admissions

Acceptance rate9.2%

Enrolled mid-50%—

Test policynot used

Rec letters—

Deadlines (2026–27 cycle)

Regular decisionDec 1

Verified from the school’s admissions page ↗

Applying (2026-27 cycle)

Apply through Own application.

Interviews: No formal admissions interview; entry is by required audition, with prescreening required for Acting, Opera Studies, and Playwriting applicants.

Verified from the school’s admissions pages ↗