“Nothing but the Best” describes a microcosm of what Juilliard was and obviously, it also is focused on the outre things, the composition teacher who insists the student writes fugues, the piano student who sits on practice rooms, the cases of students trying to sabotage the instrument of someone else who is in a concerto competition, the kind of things that make a book juicy. That kind of things does exist at Juilliard (and elsewhere), but it is also a very different world today, things teachers got away with 30 years ago would not be allowed today. More importantly, the kind of kids who would do things like put pepper in someone’s ballet slipper or damage an instrument were always a minority, the image of the cutthroat place just doesn’t bear close examination, I heard the same thing about the pre college program and it was mostly a load of bs, and I know enough of the college through people who have kids there and the many kids my son knows there that the image presented is crap. That doesn’t mean that Juilliard or a similar school is perfect for everyone, it is all about fit as @glassharmonica said. BTW, for every arrogant jerk that thinks life is about competitions and undercutting other people there, there are probably dozens of kids, like @glassharmonica’s D, who care about music, love it enough to want to do it, and put tremendous effort into being musicians, taking every opportunity they can and so forth, and it is those kids who make it a great place to go, as those kinds of kids make other places, too.
Conservatories are obviously focused on music, music, music and for some kids, that won’t work, likewise because schools at the level of Juilliard admit a very high level of student, they aren’t going to be as generous as a program that wants to attract the higher level student to help make their name. It is all about fit, and there is no one best way, @compmom, that would fit every student, I suspect there are VP students who studied privately then got the MM afterwords, among other things with voice because of the late maturity I suspect alternate paths may work even better than with instrument (and that is spoken as someone who is an outsider to the voice world, others can speak with more authority). Some kids would need that immersion in music, would need to live, breath and eat it to be fullfilled and move forwards, other want a more ‘typical’ college experience and want, for example,to have a dual degree or at the least, all the gen ed courses they would have in a university. Some like my son love to hang around with music types all the time, others may want to be around a variety of students, it is up to the student. My take on the whole music training situation is that it depends on the student being talented, of course, but also being motivated to move forward and take the bull by the horns, and that varies from kid to kid.