My son made contact with one of the jazz trombone profs at a large, competitive music school in the Midwest. He was hoping to have a practice lesson with him. My son received a prompt reply, and they had a wonderful nearly 2-hr lesson/mtg. I was even invited to sit in and observe. At the end, he offered to meet with my son weekly for further prep leading up to his audition (I had asked if he ever works with kids who are planning to audition. I was assuming nothing beyond a practice lesson). They’ve since met again, and by the time he auditions at the end of this month, they will have had a chance to work together four times. This is a busy, accomplished, incredibly well respected trombone player who is not even charging us for his time to work with my son. We feel like we hit the lottery just getting the opportunity to work with him once, let alone repeatedly.
My question is, does a prof at a university music school do this with everyone if they make contact like my son did? Or is this type of offer by him reserved for people the prof thinks he wants as a student in the program? My son will be auditioning for him plus a panel of 6 or 7 other jazz dept faculty.
Do other people have experiences and stories like this (good or bad) they can share about what you think his chances are of actually getting in?
A little background, my kid has been playing trombone since 5th grade in small, Catholic school environments. So, overall, he hasn’t had tons of music experiences that might’ve come at large public schools. He’s had no big competitions, marching band doesn’t even exist at his high school, and he doesn’t take lessons from a famous teacher (just a local grade school music teacher who thinks my son is pretty good).
Thanks for any thoughts and experiences you all can share!
Signed,
A Nervous Mom
My son has experienced this at both Michigan State and UM Frost. Both schools did extend an offer too. It’s definitely a great advantage for sure and super helpful.
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I can’t imagine any professor working with all potential students who have reached out. My son plays viola. Violists are generally very nice and collaborative. Before college application he had established contacts with at least five professors and had lessons with all of them, while all of them knew each other and knew about my son taking lessons with them. He applied to four of the studios and they all accepted him, fully aware of each other’s decision. He was not the only student receiving this kind of generosity; however, not every student he knows get this much coaching. I’d say it’s selective but hard to gauge to what degree.
Oh, I forgot to add, one professor talked to me after their lesson. He told me that they mainly wanted students who were highly teachable, not necessarily the best talent or the highest achiever. I’m a high school teacher, so I understand what he meant.
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Thank you for your feedback. That gives me some hope! The professor my son is mtg with also made a point to say they will not judge a student by his past experience, and they want students who are teachable with excellent potential. I really appreciated hearing that.
Thank you for this info. Really happy to hear your positive story. I do want to get my hopes up for him to get into the school. It’s located in our state, and in-state tuition would be a blessing! To get the opportunity for a world class music education at a public university in our own state just seems too good to be true still.
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Every teacher is different but I doubt that this teacher does that for every student. A lot of teachers don’t even respond to requests for sample lessons. What this sounds like to me is he liked your son, likely wants to teach him, and is basically giving him pointers on how to pass the audition, to work out the rough points that might cause him to not pass. I have to say this is one of the few cases I have heard of a teacher doing this, that is really promising because it means he has already gotten through half the hurdle, he has a teacher as long as he passes the broader audition. The other thing is I can’t promise anything and I wouldn’t count on it because every school is different, but having a teacher on his side can make it easier to pass the audition, there is a certain amount of influence there.
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Thank you so much for that feedback. My son ended up working with this wonderful jazz professor for a month and a half leading up to the audition. Son officially thinks prof is the bomb diggity, and this school and teacher is his top choice. But the school is hard to get into! He will find out this Wednesday if he made it or not. I hope you are right and these two made a bond that the teacher will fight for. 
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@Kaiverson please do let us know!
for your son.
Our son also had this experience with a couple of teachers. In addition, he also auditioned at the program where his primary instrument teacher taught, and did two summers at a summer festival studying with the teacher from a different program. Accepted at both places. He also had several lessons leading up to his audition at another program…also accepted.
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