Established in 1945 as a school of contemporary music, Berklee College of Music has evolved from teaching jazz and arranging for big band, to becoming a leading global educator of contemporary music. The school’s network of partner schools around the world, as well as their campuses in Valencia, New York City, and a center in Abu Dhabi, offer students a wealth of opportunities. 

Since merging with the Boston Conservatory in 2016, Berklee College of Music has reinvented their admissions process to better match a growing pool of talented musicians across the globe. 

“With over 10,000 auditions and interviews a year, and limited human resources at the conservatory, we needed to find a solution that could keep up with the influx of applications and improve the overall quality of our assessments,” shared Damian S. Bracken, Dean of Admissions at Berklee College of Music. “That’s when we brought in Kira Talent.”

Connecting with musicians from around the globe

“We use Kira in the admissions process for two of our master’s programs and two of our undergraduate programs,” Bracken explained. “Those four programs account for around 40% of our total application numbers, and each applicant is offered the opportunity to interview.”

With more than 4,000 interviews to coordinate, Berklee College of Music optimized for greater efficiency with Kira’s Asynchronous Assessment.

“We attract applicants from every part of the world,” Bracken explained. “Being able to provide them with an asynchronous interview gets us the information and insight we need to make confident admissions decisions, without creating any cost or travel barriers.”

“The Asynchronous Assessment also creates critical consistency for how we assess across all of our applicants,” he continued. “We know that applicants receive the same experience no matter where or when they’re completing the assessment — that helps us assess each candidate on a level playing field.” 

"Kira is very effective in helping us gauge whether or not an applicant has what it takes to succeed in the program."

"The additional information that we're able to gather with Kira is very valuable," he added.

Getting a new layer of insight with Reviewer Services

When the tempo of auditions picked up, Berklee engaged Kira’s Reviewer Services to help handle the increased workload and ensure that reviews were completed on time, without sacrificing the integrity of their interview process. 

"We set a five-day turnaround timeline with the Reviewer Services team," Bracken shared. "Our applicants have five days to complete the assessment, so we felt it was necessary for us to be just as fast on the return."

“That timeline has worked very well for us,” he continued.

“Once our team is ready to get into the final holistic review, we already have all the data that we need to move forward.” 

"When I checked through the scores, I was impressed to see how well the reviewers' evaluations reflected what we intended in our rubric,” shared Bracken. “That’s due in part to the training that the Kira team does with the reviewers, familiarizing them with what we're really looking for.” 

“When we were first considering Reviewer Services, it seemed almost counterintuitive that people outside the organization could accurately assess our applicants,” he explained. “But it all goes back to the design and the clarity around the rubrics that Kira helped us build. There’s so much thought and detail put into each competency and score description, it enables an external reviewer to align very closely to how our internal reviewing team scores applicants, and results in very accurate evaluations.”

Finding the right rhythm for your team 

“Reviewer Services gives us the resources we need without removing us from the admissions process,” Bracken added. "Everything is recorded and accessible in Kira. It's quite common for us to pull up an applicant’s responses when we’re making those final decisions."

"Kira has been incredibly easy to pick up and use,” shared Bracken. “The platform is very accessible for our applicants, our reviewers, and our admin team."

“It isn't a ‘one and done’ platform. It's highly collaborative, and the Kira team is just as invested in your success as you are.”