<p>One of the ways we approached this issue was to make a short list of the teachers with whom my daughter really wanted to study. Then we found out where the best of their prior students were now teaching. The first group corresponded to her top choice schools and the second gave her some options for safeties and the middle ground.</p>
<p>Don’t count on your compositions giving you total control until you are prepared to analyze them in detail and justify the choices you made in the course of a live interview with your potential teachers. Even then, you may be asked to analyze something you have never seen or heard before. (Hint: Get to know their works as well as possible beforehand.) Don’t let youself get too comfortable going into the process - you will still have to perform in real time in an intellectual sense.</p>