Vieuxtemps5

Many of you are looking for schools for your kids or some are students yourself, and I really like how much people help each other here so I wanted to pass on something which to many people is a dirty secret of the university/conservatory audition process.

When you apply, you have to rank teachers (usually from 1 to 3). This is really dangerous in some cases.

Some teachers simply will not take you if you did not put them at #1. These are usually star teachers, who are pretty famous for what they do and have an impressive list of students.

There's also the much trickier thing of politics. There are some teachers who hate each other. If you put 1 over the other, if you get to your 2nd choice, a teacher who normally doesn't care too much about their ranking will not take you because you placed the department head or some colleageue they really don't like. This is the kind of stuff you can only find out by having friends who can tell you about this, or someone who really knows the landscape well. New York used to be pretty bad about this while a certain musician was still alive. If you studied with one camp of people and then unknowingly auditioned for someone in the "other" camp, you definately wouldn't get accepted.

The third case is more rare but it can be a big deal. Husband/wife teams. There's a number of them out there at various conservatories. In every case I know of, if you put one over the other, neither will take you because it's seen as if you're saying one is better than the other, so the higher ranked one will also refuse your application. It was weird for me to find out about this, but I'm close with the daughter of a very prominent husband/wife combo (and what makes it really difficult is that the lady uses her maiden name). She explained this to me last summer and I was blown away, because I'd made that mistake with another husband/wife thing!

So, be mindful of these things. If you're applying for a really top teacher, not only should you see them beforehand, but you should also do your detective work. Talk with them and make your intentions clear. I think a lot of the time you'll find that there's no problems whatsoever, but it is still well known that there are some egos out there which don't like being #2 (if for no other reason that they have 100 applications putting them at #1).