<p>There is another aspect that in talking to people comes up time and again about the difference of let’s say studying with a great teacher at a smaller/less prestigious school, versus the same teacher at a more prestigious program or a teacher of comparable talent. At a more prestigious school, you are generally surrounded by students on average of a very high caliber, whereas with a less pretigious program chances are the average level of achievement may be less, even though there will be talented students in almost any program. As some others have said, this means that when playing in ensembles, or perhaps doing competitions within the school, a student is in the position of keeping up with the joneses so to speak, while at less prestigious program they may be one of the leading edge students. When someone is at the out edge of the bell curve where relatively few are at the same level, there is less external motivation to improve, whereas if the program is such that the middle of the bell curve is way out there, it can help drive students to excel. There are other factors as well, things like potential access to outside performing opportunities or access through networking to other opportunities and such.</p>
<p>That isn’t a guarantee, there are plenty of kids who to go prestigious programs and end up not making it in music, there are kids who go to less prestigious programs and do well (though note, the trend these days with instrumental music is that students more and more are getting master’s degrees, and often these are at the top schools, as others have pointed out). From where I stand at the moment, a moving target, going to a ‘top’ program like Juilliard or Curtis is not a guarantee of success particularly, and going to a ‘lesser’ program doesn’t mean someone is doomed to mediocrity, in the end it all depends on the student and their motivation and willingness to stretch themselves. From everything I have been able to discern, the real success factor is a student grabbing everything they can and going for it with all their heart and ability, and where a top level program has an advantage is that there is a lot more external force to drive a student to excel whereas it is a lot easier at a less prestigious program to kind of coast (if the student’s personality allows them to do that). In the end, assuming the student has good teaching that demands they excel, then it really is up to the student IMO.</p>