How much weight does the primary teacher have on acceptance?

Hi all,

Anxiously awaiting a decision this week from Manhattan School of Music to begin my Masters. I had a lesson with the teacher on my respective instrument, which went very well and lasted almost two hours as we were having so much fun! They greeted me positively at the audition with a hug and some light conversation. The audition itself went well, and I had a panel of five, who all seemed receptive to my playing. Of course, I am nervous like anyone awaiting to hear decisions this week, but the only aspect outside of my control that I think could’ve had a negative impact are my grades from undergrad. They are not terrible - I had a 3.2 - but lots of Cs and Ds in theory/history/sightsinging.

Will/can the primary teacher trump all of that if they really want a student to study with them (assuming they do)? Or is it basically back in the Admissions office’s court once the say is in from the audition?

Many thanks!

I’ve posted my anecdote on another thread. Very accomplished violinist accepted to the studio of one of the big violin teacher “names” for MM both at Juilliard and NEC where name teacher has studios. Undergrad GPA was too low, multiple repated theory classes before passing for credit. Ultimately, both schools denied admittance. So, it does happen.

But, that’s one story and not your school. I’m sure there is no single answer to your question - too many teachers and schools out there. I suspect you will be OK, but do study hard for any grad placement exams if you are admitted and attend. You don’t want to take remdial no cedit classes if you can avoid it!

I know a similar case with a GPA below 3.0 for graduate school (it was not MSM). The person was accepted but without scholarship (needed a 3.0 or above to be considered for scholarships). He had never visited the school and did not know a teacher. He was a male VP singer however with one of the less common voice types and was really coming into himself as a singer. I don’t know how things work at MSM or anywhere for that matter…but I always think that it depends on a variety of factors. So you’ll just have to wait and see. Good luck!!

You really can’t generalize from school to school; there can be different situations even within a school, depending on the situation.

Thanks for your replies! I’m sorry if my question was unclear - I am not so concerned about the GPA itself, rather those few courses that I did poorly in. More so, just because I bonded with the teacher, will said teacher vouch for me? Do they have that much power once it gets to the actual admitting?

Since you seem to be asking about very specific grades/courses for a specific school application, have you considered just contacting MSM’s admissions office and asking them explicitly? Sifting through various anecdotal experiences that may or may not apply to your situation is probably more stress-inducing than helpful. Some schools will recalculate a GPA based on only the classes it’s interested in (i.e. core music classes, or classes in your major, for instance) and apply a minimum criteria to that. Some schools don’t have any. The most straight-forward way of finding this out is by asking admissions.

I think it really depends on which teacher and how much influence that person has.

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.

Right, what ALL of them said!

Recently I knew a student in the exact same situation- except that he was a VP applicant and a rare voice type. The teacher he wanted to study with was the same voice type and was well known in the field. Ordinarily, the student’s low GPA (it was much lower than your’s overall- a 2.2, I believe, but major problems with theory/sight singing/history that definitely pulled it way down) would have put him completely out of the running for any credible graduate VP program, but the teacher really wanted him and went to bat with the rest of the faculty and the admissions office and the student was admitted on a provisional basis. The young man took all the remedial courses and with help from a couple of kind classmates who tutored him through those and his classes and comps, he did make it and graduated, but it was a real struggle. Masters of Music degrees are not all about “playing music” at most schools; there are academic courses in music history, theory, etc which delve even deeper than those at the undergrad levels and there can be entrepreneurial and classes to prepare you for handling your own career. Papers to write and deadlines to meet.

It’s out of your hands now, so just sit back and wait to hear…Congrats on having a great audition!