If you’re dreaming of a profession in recording and audio production, and you are looking over audio engineering school reviews to find the best school, the results can be a little confusing, and quite often unreliable. Often times when you find lists of top-ranked schools, they are on websites which exist for the promotion of certain schools, or are paid endorsers of certain schools, so the list will be slanted toward the schools they favor.
In other cases, you might find a news agency or trade publication that lists certain schools by ranking. These can be a little more credible, however they often fail to address a number of the key issues students face. (Students might not be able to make connections in the industry even though they have been taught advance education.) Usually, numerous forums online are stormed by opinions. Not knowing who is talking or why makes these sources very unreliable sources of information.
Do not misunderstand-audio engineering school reviews may help. They merely have to be kept in perspective. The fact that an audio engineering school will rank very well on someone’s list doesn’t mean it is the right school for you-and the fact that someone wrote something negative in regards to a school doesn’t automatically mean they are a scam. There are two basic ways you can find a bit of balance when examining audio engineering school reviews:
1. Carefully consider how reliable the source of information can be (See whether it is a for-profit website, an individual or a trade publication) 2. Look for a consensus of opinion. (If most people are saying the same thing about a school, it is more reliable than if a person or two people are saying it.)
Another thing to consider: while school rankings by trade publications and journalists can be helpful, perhaps the people most qualified to tell you about the quality of a particular school are the students/graduates who have attended that school. Their reviews matter more in many cases than the impersonal data compiled by researchers. Students and graduates can let you know whether the education they received truly helped them launch a career as a music producer or audio engineer, and they let you know how easy or difficult it was to land a job once they graduated. More often than not, an audio engineering school that has created a good rapport with its students will make these reviews and testimonials public, because they are in place the best advertising for these schools.
Finally, remember that there are plenty of good schools out there, many of which never lead to the lists. Don’t just look at reviews; look also at the school itself, and what it really offers, what its job placement rate is, etc. Keep in mind that audio engineering school reviews that are posted by the students who have gone through are the best and most reliable of all.