I understand fully the “customer” angle. It is A LOT of money. Just know that the admissions folk who are “front end” personnel will have very little, if anything at all, to do with your students overall education and graduation. But you might consider that you are spending it on four years of education not the brief (though frequently lame) interactions with clerks and not faculty. (though really top and busy music faculty can be the WORST at returning emails 8-| ) The example of my D’s experience continued well past graduation. Not only did she get a first class education at a top school in her field— virtually every music related job she got after school was through faculty recommendations and direction. She would have never known that based on her early contacts with admissions administration but she did understand after the faculty made the initial commitment that Saturday morning
As someone whose business revolves around customer service, this was a hard pill for me to swallow…but it was certainly easier since the same faculty gave D enough financial support to get her through grad school financially independent. (no funds from yours truly) So ultimately, we were both happy “customers”. And it was all on sale ;))