<p>My d is in last days of making decision about where to attend college as instrumental performer. She had asked a certain Professor if he would take her as a student if she chose this particular school, which he said yes. This was over a month ago. She ran into him at a musical event and he matter of factly told her that he more than likely won't be taking her as his grad list became longer. Is this common practice or should he at least let her know via email. It was her #1 school, but now in the last weeks, may be changed. Any thoughts. We are new to this.</p>
<p>Sadly this does happen. It happened to my daughter as well as a voice student. The needs of grad students always take precedence. Freshmen are the bottom of the barrel…it seems unfair but if you were the college senior preparing for grad school auditions and this happened with grad students and their needs, you would want precedence over the junior, sophomores and incoming freshmen. The only time that I would think that this might not happen is if the incoming student were an out-and-out recruited prodigy.</p>
<p>This isn’t as unusual as one would wish. Often, teachers don’t know how many of their current students will be staying on in the graduate or post-grad programs, and that can impact the number of undergrads they can take into their studio. If your D really likes this teacher I would suggest that she contact him and ask him to please keep her on his list if a spot does open up and also ask him to please suggest another teacher for her. He may co-teach with someone else or students may be allowed to work from two studios. This way, he knows that she is really eager to study with him and if he doesn’t have room, it wouldn’t hurt to ask if he would be kind enough to speak to a colleague on her behalf.
Good luck, I know this is hard, but it will work out!</p>