How much weight does the primary teacher have on acceptance?

musicprnt
Mon, 28 Mar 2016 18:33:00 +0000

I agree with @glassharmonica, it is all going to depend on the program and the teacher. Having a teacher, especially one of their ‘signature’ teachers going to bat for a student is certainly not going to hurt them, but it is hard to tell how far that goes, if there are significant negatives against the student that others feel are a problem. For example, someone who struggles with music theory and ear training undergrad may be a deal breaker for grad school, if the school feels that that is critical to them being able to handle the grad program, another one might be okay with that, if a ‘big teacher’ vouches for them. Admissions is a combination of things, and while the teacher plays a major role, there is no way to know how much influence a teacher has. I would bet that a student with poor grades in theory and ear training stands a better chance across the board if their potential teacher is enthusiastic than one where a student did okay and the teacher was okay with them, to get in, but that is about as far as you can go with it.

In the end, I would not try and put too much into the teacher’s enthusiasm, and wait and see what happens, getting your hopes up based on a teacher’s enthusiasm has more than a few times led to big disappointments IME.