You just have to look at the tasks assigned to inexperienced magi: "find me an apprentice".
Now, remember that magi pick apprentices, not the other way round! Apprentices are typically children and fifteen years of indoctrination - never neglect that aspect of apprenticeship - will leave a lasting mark on their personality, for good or ill. True, some may rebel after their Gauntlet but most probably won't, because their House's philosophy is what they grew up with and is all they know. Look at today's religions.
Interesting remark, worth time to think about to what extent a magus is bound to his house. Would be be ignored by his former house after leaving it? Probably it depents on the house. It might make a nice character, probably a flaw or something....
there are examples in the books of magi that dont fit in or dont fit their masters wishes. that is how different traditions in the lineages were formed. i think it is interesting. i think it is better if another character or the gm make the apprentice for you but then allows you to shape them in some way.
i think in true lineages they really get into magi of tremere being specialised in different things. if you are a tremere that likes to make magic item you might not be as good as the verditus, but he is not tremere.
it seems like your asking if there is a apprentice market? i think there is and there is probably a market for scribes and such but it depends on how rare thoose things are.
this is essentially the "nature" vrs "nurture" argument. I have no idea what the current trend is on that.
Since the apprentice is secured usually at the age of 5, is totally removed from a known environment, is kept is a limited and highly controlled new environment, is subject to limited social interaction (largely with a single person and few others in some cases), and has no opportunity to develop a different world view...
Well I'd be inclined to think "Nurture" would be a signficant influence. But given most Magi are eccentric even within a house I would also imagine that you don't get uniformity in houses though all apprentices from one mage might be (good for Tremere I would guess).
Frankly I'd give "Nature" little chance unless the Mage was rather easy going or unless the apprenticeship factored in significant external exchanges either in the sense of visiting places or else spending time with other mages, it would also depend strongly on the mage. A good teacher would encourage such "independance."
But few modern brainwashing indoctrinating cults enjoy the advantages the order of hermes's mages have when dealing with the apprentices and that is without considering magic.
Following up on a few ideas stated across a number of posts here, I thought I would comment on the Nature/Nurture and 15 years of apprenticeship.
Barring, perhaps, House Tytalus, and barring those very few covenants that seem to be mono-House, an apprentice is not going to train in a (excuse the pun) hermetic sealed environment as far as his House is concerned. He will be growing up in a covenant. In a large covenant there is a very good chance that he will even grow up around other apprentices. Even without other apprentices he will see multiple magi at work, each probably from a different House, and form relations with them as well as with his Master. He will have interactions with them that will alter how he sees magic.
In other words those fifteen years are not going to be in a pure environment, as far as his House is concerned.
Who knows? Maybe the seeds for a switch are planted very early on in the mind of an apprentice.
Only to the extent allowed by his parens. Who the apprentice sees, what the apprentice is exposed to, what the apprentice reads, and even if the apprentice is allowed out of the Sanctum in those 15 years are dependent totally on the mage doing the instruction. Totally.
Also covenants are supposed to be far more uni-house or did this get chucked in the 5th edition revision? The PC's are an exception and not the rule is how this used to be.
As for seeing, and visiting other apprentices this is wholy dependant on circumstances that, at least for me, have to be variable covenant to covenant and mage to mage. I don't think it is at all safe to make the sort of general statements that you make. Yes you might be right some fraction of the time but not always and I have no way to judge if you are even often correct.
Also for other apprentices, I am not sure but it was pretty rare in the covenant project for apprentices to overlap one with the other and depending on the period of overlap you might not get much interaction anyway. Really you need to be within a year or two of each other for there to be any significant interaction at all.
I recall training two apprentices at once I think for a few years which was a lot of juggling.
Another thing is that an apprentice gets very very busy near the end of the apprenticeship. It is usually at this point that you are also in a great deal of personal instruction with the mage. It is in the last 3-4 years that you get your magical training and learn your spells. So in the last few years where a lot of formative personality building occurs is precicely when you are the most isolated/exposed to your parens.
The exception to that is when multiple mages exchange apprentices but when I proposed that in the covenant project, the work the other players wanted in recompense for the training time was excessive and the plan died. But this may not be universal still I doubt that any but mages which are solid friends with one another would actually exchange apprentice training (see the last line of the post for why).
I agree 100% but it will be an environment largely determined by the mage to whome the 'prentice is apprenticed to. As I said before its doubtful given the range of eccentricities one observes in PC mages that you will get a uniform house "look" but the mages trained by "Magus Eksupsolon" will likely be rather uniform unless he or she has changed her philosophy on instruction between them.
The other thing, and here I am speaking as someone who taught three apprentices in the covenant project, the strength of the apprentice will strongly be affected by their similiarity to the mage due to the way instruction works. So a 'prentice who is a "chip off the olde block" will come out of the apprenticeship far better off than will one whose magical interests are different. And teaching an apprentice is a lot of effort on the part of the mage, have no doubt on that.
