This paper presents a sub study of a larger project analyzing quality and value in the assessment of improvised music in the Norwegian upper secondary schools. Assessments are done in compliance with the current national curriculum, but this national curriculum does not include repertoire nor assessment criteria. One source of quality criteria or repertoire could be the entrance auditions to higher music education (HME), as upper secondary education prepares students for higher education. However, most audition requirements in HME in Norway do not provide a repertoire or assessment criteria in jazz and improvised music. Musical qualities and values are contextual and part of a discursive practice in which traditions, institutions, artists, listeners, teachers and students take part in, albeit at different levels of possibilities for fixation of meanings. Hence, assessing music is part of a discursive practice. What follows is the question: What musical qualities are expected from a student’s acceptance to a bachelor’s program in jazz studies and how are qualities valued? To study these expected qualities, I have observed several auditions using a version of the “Thinking aloud”-protocol (Eccles & Arsal, 2017; Ericsson & Simon, 1998) granting access to the assessors´s conversations about qualities. The application process to higher education in music performance was permanently affected by the constrictions during Covid-19, leading to all applicants turning in a video recording. Consequently, the assessors will first review all the video recordings to determine an applicant’s eligibility. The researcher was granted access and asked the assessors to “think aloud” during the initial audit of these video recordings. The inquiry will shed light on multitudes of qualities found in each applicant’s performance and how musical improvisation is assessed when articulated criteria are not presented. When applicants are free to present their own understanding of a genre or repertoire, it is likely that the assessors will negotiate the value of qualities found or missing from an applicant’s performance. Most likely, what is communicated is an internalized understanding of the music and improvisation that isn’t automatically translated into signs of fixed signification. Therefore, even if there was a set of articulated criteria for assessment, the teachers will likely enter a negotiation based on observed qualities outside of any articulated criteria. Drawing upon Eisner’s concept of connoiseurship (Eisner, 2017), this paper will discuss how quality and value is articulated through personalized language.