William, my experience may have been a "one off" sort of thing (at least I hope so). At the time I took the class, the department had the new music professor teaching the 18th century counterpoint class. In hindsight, that was probably not a very wise selection. The class literally only met for about 1/2 the sessions it was supposed to have, as the teacher had many outside activities, and at that time was getting somewhat known in the electronica field. The department was revamped a few years later after I graduated, so things may have been straightened out (I chose that particular school as they had a good double-bass professor, something many other schools did not have).
For obvious reasons, I prefer not to post either the school name, or the name of the professor (it is always possible that some might recognize his name). I should add that as a person, he was a cool guy, just not for 18th century counterpoint.
Overall, I was very glad to have been a music major at that school, and most of my experiences were positive, the one mentioned above was one of a couple exceptions. Considering how naive I was at the time - I decided to become a music major after taking a music theory course in high school as a junior (the one year it was offered), and didn't start playing what became my major instrument until my senior year (double-bass), the fact that the school even let me pursue the major (though on probation to start), and that things ended up going as well as they did, is something I have always been thankful for. It was a good thing that I didn't know things just were not done the way I ended up doing them.