...shall much be required.

A dear friend’s son is blessed to be both an incredible scholar and an incredible musician. Accordingly, he was looking for that rare combination of a superior conservatory and scholarly academics. This is not common. Most conservatories focus on music, to the ignorance of scholarship and most the top academic colleges in the country do not offer conservatories worthy of his talents. So they had to do some research and uncover the appropriate but short list of options.

They were kind to bring me along the journey with regular updates of campus visits, family conversations, and new discoveries. What I learned through this journey is that the world of auditioning for conservatories has its own set of admissions standards and practices.

For example, none of these institutions will divulge how many spaces they may have for trumpets, as an example. They will happily cash your application fee check and let you go to the expense of coming out for the audition, but feel no obligation to let the 150 applicants know there are only two trumpet spots this year.

My friend’s son, however, was talented and smart enough that it didn’t matter. He got a number of offers of admission, including to his first choice. You can imagine the excitement in the household. All those years of practicing and lessons and music camps (say nothing of miles logged in the car by mom and dad to get to all these places!) finally paid off.

But wait.

Here is something else the conservatories don’t tell you or share in their materials or on their websites: financial aid is allocated relative to the institution’s needs, not that of the family. So if you play a popular instrument, like the piano, then your kid is a dime a dozen. You fill out all your paperwork and blindly apply for the assistance your family’s finances indicate you need only to find out what you need is not a consideration. They’ll happily pony up some aid to meet their own needs but if they think your kid can be replaced with a rich kid, then it’s buh-bye.

There’s an ethical irony here insofar that if you are one of these elite conservatories with excellent academics who churn out the next first chair of the Boston Pops, then I suppose you can do as you like, as your wait pool will always be deep and your applications many. On the other hand, if you are top dog in your profession or your peer group or your industry, are you not obligated to set the standard higher, not obligated to be above such things?

So we’ll close with a little scripture this Sunday morning for your consideration and the consideration of conservatory admissions offices: For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required.