Do not go to AIM.
There's been threads like this before, and I've said the same thing.
I went there, studied there for a good long while, so yeah. xD
AIM has no jazz department. It's classical department is an abolishment. Infact, it's quite shocking. Usually I wouldn't diss my old schools and stuff, but it's a shocker for music education. If you're serious about wanting a professional career in performance- DO NOT, I repeat. DO NOT go to aim.
There isn't actually a Jazz department, there's music theatre which they seem to label 'jazz' but 'Music theatre' is not for anything else but voice majors.
The standard of teaching is quite appaling. The academic subjects- such as Music industrie studies and Music Technology are quite good. They have the right facilities for Music tech, and if you wanted to do an AUDIO major degree, I'd say definatley consider AIM as an option, but performance, you'd been wasting 3 years, and a HELL of alot of money. Yes, it's FEE-HELP, but not Commowealth Supported. The prices per Semester are outrageous for the University degrees, and they're not officially recognised as 'standard' degrees. Meaning, if you wanted to apply for a postgraduate course when you'd finished say the Bachelor of Music degree at AIM, you wouldn't be able to apply at the Con, or other conservatoriums around Australia. Yes, you could quite easily get into the AIM post-grad stuff, but that's a whole load of money. Per year one of the courses (post grad) costs 25 000.
It really limits your options, and they have a BAD and I mean seriously BAD performance teaching staff (i'm talking about individual lesson teachers).
The only Plus:
- No audition.
That could be a negative thing too. Hmm, weigh it up. xD