<p>This is my third attempt to get this in, hopefully it will work this time (been busy working and writing this)…</p>
<p>I think the whole legacy thing is like the myths of rich korean parents bribing their kids into Juilliard, it doesn’t make much sense. Juilliard because of its name attracts a ton of applicants and a lot of them are very talented, so it makes no sense to admit someone because they are a legacy or because someone ‘wants them’ if they haven’t made the grade. Quite frankly, it would stand out like a sore thumb, and among other things, teachers are not really collegial, there is intense competition between studios (I am speaking mostly for strings and Piano, I don’t know much about other instruments or for voice), and they would not want to be embarassed by a student who is markedly worse. If someone gets in, it means they meet the min requirements, which means they already have achieved a high level (and I think the same thing applies to other high level programs, I am using juilliard because it was the original subject and is known to me).</p>
<p>It also would be hard to give legacies special preference on the pre screen because as far as I know, the office handles the pre screening process and when the panel sees them, they don’t know who the applicants are, they simply pass them on. Someone could take an applicant in the pre screen pool and put them in the ‘to be auditioned pile’ automatically, but like I said above, there would be too much risk in that, the audition panel would spot someone that bad and real questions could be raised if they started seeing a lot of kids like that…the whole point of the pre screen is not to force the ‘hoi polloi’ to go through the pre screen while the ‘hoity toidy’ (i.e legacies, pulled in by teachers, etc) don’t have to do it, the idea is to make sure they aren’t wasting the audition panels time (and yes, I know teachers on the panels, for several different string areas, and they mentioned how ****ed they were with auditioners clearly not up to snuff before the pre screen came in…and have heard them cure out the pre screen panel for letting certain students in, though they also said it is extremely rare).</p>
<p>My point is simply that counting on being a legacy is not only likely to be wrong, it is also demeaning, would you really want to get an audition and then be one of the clearly unready students in the audition process? If you couldn’t cut the heat in the pre screen, would you want to be auditioning simply to say “I auditioned”…even if it could get you past the pre screen, what would be the point if you otherwise weren’t good enough? Like I said above, they aren’t going to admit someone who can’t cut the min level of playing, among other things, few teachers would want a student who couldn’t pass the pre screen who got ‘grandfathered’ into admission, because the studios are competitive and a student like that would make them look bad…</p>
<p>If legacies show a higher percentage of getting into Juilliard, I suspect it is because it meant that the family knew how to navigate the music process and what is required, it means the candidate saw their sibling doing the long hours of practice from an early age, knew what a good teacher was and so forth, and believe me, that is valuable, the earlier the better, with my S it took us a while to figure that out after we got some help (like that the local teacher of ‘high repute’ may not be very good at all), and so forth…plus with a legacy the other sibling might get exposure to teachers through the admitted sibling, which can be a help in getting a studio…</p>
<p>Anyway, I wouldn’t count on being a legacy getting you through the process per se, but if you do get the audition and get in, rather be proud of the work you did.</p>