Dear Nathaniel,

I can't help it. I keep trying to imagine what
your life will be like next year.  I admit it's
presumptuous of me even to comment, and I apologize
for doing so.

Don't overlook the cultural environment
which you now take for granted: the BSO, the BYSO,
the New England Conservatory, the Fogg Museum,
the Museum of Fine Arts, the Gardner Museum,
MIT and BU faculties and students, - assuming
arguendo that Yale is equal to Harvard. In
New Haven on the other hand, the intelligentsia
must travel seventy miles to NYC to replenish
its cultural needs.  All these considerations
are very real to me, because 48 years ago _I_
decided I wanted to practice medicine in Cambridge
because of the cultural ambience. The only real
competition was Princeton. (Medical practice in
a smaller town outside of Massachusetts might have
been in many ways more satisfactory and probably
more remunerative.)

The other factor not to underestimate is the
value of the (musical) relationships that you
already have in the Boston area, which a move
to New Haven would compromise, at least to a
degree. The musicians, and especially the conductors
with whom you presently work are probably dependent
on you to a greater degree than you imagine, and
until you present them with real competition, they
have an obvious interest in promoting your career.
The ladder on which Leonard Bernstein climbed to
prominence was steadied by Serge Koussevitzky.

Finally, there seems to me some risk of relying on
the information that one obtains from casual inquiries
of prospective fellow students. It's natural for them
to have a strong emotional commitment to the environment
in which they happen to be thriving (or surviving), but
their perspectives are not necessarily realistic. Perhaps
even more important, a permissive environment, which
provides opportunities for mediocre talent, is not optimal
for one who is very talented and highly motivated. Where
the threshold of being accepted is high, the risk of being
sidelined, overlooked or frustrated is unavoidably much
greater, but so are the rewards to him who makes the grade.

Extrapolating from my own experiences of professional failure:
When I realised that the Harvard professorship of philosophy,
comparative literature, or even German literature which I coveted,
was out of my reach, I went to medical school, rather than 
consoling myself with a teaching position at Lesley or Simmons
or U of Mass somewhere in exile...

If I were your guidance counsellor, - which I'm not - I would
suggest that in addition to pursuing with all available
resources, music as your career of choice, you consider putting
in place, in the event of disappointment, the foundations for
a secondary career to fall back on. (Computer) engineering,
economics, and law come to mind.

Most important: that you do whatever is best for you, without
regard certainly to wishes that I might have; and that you know
that whatever you do and wherever you go, my affection and my
support will follow you.

Yoyo