<p>My son is a cellist and passed prescreening for a music school with more than one cello professor. On his application, he indicated his first choice professor and will have an audition with him in February. He also had to list his second and third choices. What happens if his first choice professor doesn't accept him into his studio? Does he automatically get bumped into his second choice studio or does he need to audition for that professor as well? </p>
<p>Normally what happens is the student auditions for a panel on their appointed day, and from that they start the matching process with the studio. If his first choice professor has indicated they don’t want to accept your son or doesn’t have room, they go to the next teacher. Often that teacher may have been in your audition and having seen the kid, will accept them without seeing more of them. Some teachers may want to arrange a sample lesson or something similar to help make up their mind, it all depends. What also can happen sometimes is that the kids preferences are not available or whatever, but other teachers on the panel indicated they would teach the kid, then it becomes a matching game run by admissions.</p>
<p>Note that some schools (Indiana is one that comes to mind) don’t do this, you audition, get accepted then have to find a studio, go see the teachers and work it out that way, but most follow the model above.</p>
<p>It varies from school to school. At some schools the teachers don’t see the rankings; at others they do. And then there are schools like Indiana, as musicprnt points out. </p>
<p>At one major conservatory, students rank teachers; teachers rank students and are also asked to choose from admit/reject/accept-to-studio. The administration is the only one who sees either set of rankings, and they do their sorting hat trick behind the scenes. Inevitably there are students admitted but not assigned to a studio; that is worked out in cooperation with the student and the faculty after April 1. At other schools, the rankings by students are visible to the teachers. If you rank one teacher first you risk insulting the #2 teacher and could be rejected from the school (because they will down-vote you) despite playing an excellent audition. There’s always an element of risk and luck (in addition to the most important element, preparation.)</p>
<p>Thank you for your replies. This process is largely a mystery to us, and this board has been very helpful in putting some of the anxieties to rest.</p>