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This place claimes that is is an accredited music college through an affiliation with SUNY Old Westbury. It has been accepting students for under grad. and GRAD. students for Master Degree and Music Therapy courses as well. The truth is, their so called affiliation is nothing but an on-going business deal for the past 6 yrs. and w.o. any promise or gurantee that it will work out. If it does not work out, the students who has been paying tuition for yrs. are left with nothing. The Scam of it all is that they do not let the students know about these complications, and hide such facts unless questioned. When questioned, they make it seem like the business deal is almost done and will be successful. They've been saying the same thing for the past 5 yrs. I swear~! 95% of the faculty can not speak english. i mean, they say music itself is an universal language, but students can not understand the things coming out of their professor's mouths! Most speak only Russian and Korean. The president of the 'institute' is a barbarian. She carries around the newest LV bags but starts throwing temper tentrums in the middle of hallways, barge into classrooms and start cursing at students and teachers for no reason. 80% of the people who work there quit after 2 weeks because she's so psycho. She even holds pay checks to screw over teachers.
Except for 5 pianos, other 8 of them or so are pianos worth less then $200. And she doesn't even tune the pianos to save money, seriously, this woman is unbelievably cheap. During summer school, she carges students $7 per day for lunch. She orders 2 chinese lomains and give a pinch to each students. Or order one of those dollar quesadillas from subways for each student. This isnt a college, this is an after school institution. The class rooms are tiny and during winter she wont raise the heat beyond 67 degrees and during summer, she puts in fans in unventilated rooms. Everything about this place is a fraud. I'm talking institution itself, faculty, the president, the affiliation, tuition, tests, scholarships, competitions, etc. They have an annual music competition called LISMA competition. LISMA is actually a non profit foundation created by president kim min sun of liconservatory. She actually chose the winner for this yr.'s competition ( a new incoming college student she had already offered full scholarship to) before the competitors even applied. Who won? of course, that student she offered full scholarship to, so that she would not have to give prize money to another person, which would have made her spend more money. Her two kids won the competition too. EVERYTHING about this place, college, grad school, after school, music school, summer school is a fraud scam. Even after so many litigations, she doesn't learn, president kim. Music therapy course? the entire 4 yrs is taught by one man. not one graduated yet. why? because no where else will they accept the students of LIC for music therapy internship because it's an unaccredited school.
Do not work there, or attend that place. it's unbelievable.
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Don't go LIC/LISMA science program at all. it is a money trap, because qualified professor no longer work there anymore.
The new program has no equipments and qualified mentor at all..
minsun employs people with difficult immigration status that have no other options other than to teach there. She takes advantage of every single employee. They're required to work extra without any pay, donate for her fundraisers (between $70-300 mandatory minimum), and be available on short notice for her concerts. Of course, without pay. There are meetings that faculty has to attend, again, without pay. Those who don't do even one of these items, loose the "privilege" to teach there ie. - don't get any new students, or classes to teach. She acts more like a North Korean dictator with Bipolar disorder. She is really cheap, and has absolutely no class. She even argues with the phone company for $5 off the phone bill. Of course she drives the latest Mercedes, wears $ 10, 000 shoes and is in cahoots with the Nassau County executive, Ed Mangano.
Musicians are poor people, and life is especially hard for immigrant musicians. I've seen some talented people she recruited being mercilessly abused. Somehow, these people dedicate themselves to teaching and give everything they can to students. If she would be taken out of the picture, that would be actually a great school. But I've seen some of the same people bursting into tears after being insulted (in front of their students, sometimes even only 5 years olds) in the lowest fashion possible by minsun kim, this crazy freak. She should be in a mental hospital, not running a school and terrorizing people.
My advice to parents - if you can shield your kids from the screams and fits of this North Korean Bipolar freak, you can get an awesome music education from talented faculty. My advice to faculty - I know life is hard, but you can make better money waiting tables.
I've been once to one of her fundraisers. The evening would have been a really successful one, food was good, the show was great. Two things darkened the atmosphere: her bad English speech (for crying out loud, take some speech pathology lessons, you have the money!), and the stressed out, gloomy faces of her faculty. Besides working for the event without pay, they were forced to donate money, or had them taken out of their paycheck. I'm sure that a bonus for working the event ($ 300 for each) would have had them sprinkling with enthusiasm. Instead, $ 300 was taken from them. How long will the abuse last for? My advice for Mrs. Kim - take your medication, and talk to a shrink. It's not a shame, you know. You're shaming yourself everyday by your behavior. The shrink can help. And take some speech pathology lessons, learn how to pronounce understandable English. Also, take some business courses to learn how you can built an honest company by honoring, not horroring your employees and cusomers. Last but not least, just GROW UP!
One last note - about this board. It used to be one of the top google results when anyone searched the conservatory. Too bad that her employees found ways to hide this. If you have an honest business, you're not afraid of transparency!
I used to work at this place, the things that go on there are unbelievable! Don't waste your money! Mrs. Kim has bipolar issues and likes to take her rage out on her employees. Also, she is very very very rude!
Oh my God, I went there today and the teachers there are nothing buy lying idiots. Mrs. Kim and the rest of the place just try to make everyone look mad, and they try to make themselves look the best. Mrs. Kim is a selfish ### and she must be put in her place. Don't go there/send your kids there. You're wasting your money.
WOW that is all I can say! I was going to send my son here and have not had a chance to stop by (am I glad I didn't). I live in Roslyn and saw their ad about the prep course for Johns Hopkins SCAT tests. My 9 yr. old son was invited by Johns Hopkins and thought this might be a good idea as well as switching his music lessons to LISMA. I absolutely will NOT go near that place. Ms. Kim sounds like she needs to be put in her place, arrested and completely shut down. Having said that SUNY needs to know what is going on because she is using them as a platform for personal gain. Thank You so much for saving me from was sure to be a stressful situation. I will spread the word to anyone and everyone who speaks of this place.
i agree with all of yous. im a student at this school and i hate the entire foundation. whoever first started this discussion about the unbelievable, ###ed, disgusting LIC is a genius. That place is not a school. hah, it is more like LIG (Long Island Garbage Can). She always gives prizes to her children and i believe the whole conservatory was founded to let her children get advantages and ms. Kim to buy slutty clothes and get money. Some people started commenting about her boobs, and believe me it is as flat as a piece of paper. There would be no reason for her to wear a bra since she has nothing to hide. There may be one or two good professors a the school, but everyone else is no better than a monkey. Ms. kim is a total ### who is selfish, greedy, immoral, and is like volcano just waiting to erupt. The so called LIC Competion is toatally BS. Some people perform way better than others, but the others still get prizes, such as her children. Ms. kim has got to learn to chill and give prizes to the people who actually deserve it. All the teachers in the academic program are dumber than a butt. Even i can teach better than them. If you are planning to go to this place, hit your head to a brick and think straight. You'll get smarter in prison than by going to this ### hole.
Wow. Thank you sharing this, everyone. I was offered a position here, and was in the stages of finalizing everything, but for some reason, I had doubts. They also made me sign a contract for 1 year, and offered no vacation or sick days! (sick days' notice had to be given in advance, for up to 1 week!) I have never heard of this before in my life. I had many doubts, but thank you for sharing.
forgot to add: these rare teachers i mention really were hidden gems, but i've wondered many times why the heck they stayed there b/c i know for a fact that some of them are qualified to teach real students and some, even professionals.
my post feels inadequate because i haven't quite done as much bashing on Ms. Kim, but i think everyone else has done that already. hah.
I was a student there for many years, and i've seen enough to say that while Kim's behavior is questionable at best, the teachers i have been taught by there really do have the best intentions for their students and push them to do well. However, some of them really aren't all that great, but not b/c of language barriers. I've had korean, russian, chinese teachers there and while some accents were thick, i never had much trouble figuring out what they wanted to say. Rather, the problem was that some of them really just couldn't teach students beyond the intermediate level. They simply don't have the experience and/or enough mastery of the more advanced pieces to teach it to students (i.e. Tchaikovsky's Violin concerto, Dvorak's cello concerto. i will concede however, that these are not the easiest pieces to teach as i am using more extreme examples). HOWEVER, I would like to point out that there are definitely a few (rare) hidden gems (teachers) in that place that can really bring out the best in their students (and teach above said pieces professionally as they have performed them several times in professional performances but from my experience at LIC, that's few and far between. I have also played consistently at the college level and can say that the teachers i had after high school were great, but not as good as the best i've seen at LIC. just look at the resumes of some of these (rare) teachers and you'll see why). But, it has been awhile since i've been there though so things may have changed since then for better or for worse in terms of quality of teachers.
In no way do I promote the way LIC runs things (as a student, we just go to our lessons. we leave that money stuff to parents, but i have seen her yell and act very unprofessional), but their teachers can be quality if you know who to look for.
As for college level, sorry I have no idea, but when I heard they were affiliated (or trying to) with SUNY Westbury, I couldn't help but laugh.
oh and yes, Mrs. Kim is filthy rich, and I can absolutely see why LIC is a revolving door for the faculty.
I worked therer briefly. Ms. Kim is a ###. She spoke to me that way ONE TIME and I left. She is incredibly rude to her staff and the affiliation with SUNY is a fraud. totally.
I worked there as well. It was a joke. Mrs. Kim is a psycho.
As a former teacher at the school, I have to agree with everything mentioned in the above complaint.
I will say that despite Ms. Kim’s completely diabolical ways, many on faculty did have concern for their students and tried to give them a quality education with the limited resources they had.