And I’ll add one more comment I didn’t have time to make before. I assume most people know this … teachers are “people” too, some with incredibly busy schedules and personal lives, so it can be hard to connect with them despite how important it is to your kid. In the “heat of the moment”, you may get miffed at these teachers as “isn’t it their job to teach” and “how dare they blow a young, hopeful student off”. There are definitely schools/teachers that are better at communicating with aspiring musicians. Many LACs wear this as a badge and it is to their credit. If this is important to your kid, you should definitely lean in the direction of good communication/support. Other teachers/schools may have a hands off approach and/or make you jump through a few hoops bc they may be extremely busy…so in this case you may need to be an assertive student. My D nearly got kicked out of studio Freshman year as she was not being assertive enough in getting time with her teacher (who was not the hand holding type). But the suggestion that she may need to move studios lit a fire under my D and she became aggressive for time and attention. It’s a skill that she uses to this day. BUT someone could learn that over years as opposed to first semester of Freshman year…lol. So as you get different reactions from schools and teachers be sure to put the “shoulds” aside and look at the way the teacher/school operate to gauge your kids comfort level with different approaches.
“I don’t agree with this advice. I have fairly extensive experience with this and one thing I’ve learned is that communication is not always easy or direct, and sometimes you need to be resourceful.”
Dully noted. Yes, you do have more experience than I do on this issue and I stand corrected. Yes, my point was to avoid the candidate to be a pest in the eyes of a reputable teacher and I agree some of them are disorganized and can be rude, but I see your valid point.
Your further suggestions are spot on especially:
“2) Your best bet for communicating with an elusive teacher is via connections. If your home teacher, or any of your other connections knows the prof, it might well be worthwhile for them to communicate with the prof on your behalf around the time of your request.”
I can attest this is the best option.
^^ But you are right, that there is a fine line between being persistent and being a pest! Most of us want to stay on the “persistent” side.
We called admissions to find out how best to contact a teacher (after email didn’t work). This was actually after acceptance. Anyway, the admissions office was able to give us the info that it was an especially busy week for the teacher, that the teacher avoided email, and I believe they gave us a direct phone number.
Every situation is different. We would rather pester the office than the teacher though!