1)If you are travelling any distance, try to fly in the day before at least, so the kid has a chance to rest before the audition. For one of his auditions, we had to do a coast to coast redeye, and his audition was that afternoon (we landed around 8am local time). It ended up my son got into that school but it was not his best audition
2)I agree with someone else, try to get familiar with the school in advance, maybe find out where the auditions are held, and if possible, try and see if they will let the student use a practice room before the day of the audition (some may, others will not).
3)When going into the audition room, the student shouldn’t take anything out of the way the panel looks at him/her, if they even talk much to them, or make eye contact. When playing, don’t take anything out of facial expressions, or if it looks like some of the panel members are sleeping, it probably doesn’t mean much. If you are auditoning at the end of the day, for example, the panel members may be somewhat burned out or hungry, or otherwise have had a long day (if there is a panel, some schools may only be one teacher.
4)One piece of advice I thought was valuable was don’t think of it as an audition, think of it as going into a peformance, the thought is different. One of the things I have heard from several violin faculty is that students are so focused on playing perfectly, that they can forget about the music and expression. It is obvious that kids need to be mindful of their playing and technique, but if you lose the musicality, that may well cause you to fail the audition.
5)Don’t take anything out of the length of it after the audition (and yes, folks, post audition matters, too). The reason is that the after of one audition, especially the first one you do, may affect later ones. For example, if the audition only lasts let’s say 8 minutes, the tendency can be to think “Wow, I bombed that”, and going into the next audition if they think that, it may affect their playing, make them too self conscious, etc. Likewise, you could do a 15 minute audition and think that means you must have done well, and get overconfident, when a 15 minute audition could mean they wanted to hear more because the playing was inconsistent (it also may not mean anything at all). Basically, don’t put any weight into the length, whether they talked to you, etc, it generally cannot tell you anything.
6)Compartmentalize the auditions, basically treat each one like it is the only one you are doing, and prepare for it like that. The thing about auditions is they are all going to be different, the teachers are likely looking at different things, and if you try and tailor an audition to what you experienced in the past with other auditions, you may be hurting yourself. Play each as if it is the only one you are doing…that doesn’t mean if you notice you are playing too flat or too sharp to try and improve it, but don’t think that a past audition at school A otherwise has any relevance to what School B is looking for…
7)Some kids hit the starbucks and such before auditions, and I would recommend not doing that, from what have heard and seen, can affect playing (I know, some people can drink 2 extra large coffees and not have it affect them). Caffeine and sugar can really foul up playing, have seen that one in action:).