Academics vs. Dance Ability at top schools?

<p>A friend of mine plans on majoring in dance, and was wondering whether or not academics is key to being accepted into such a program.
She plans on majoring in modern/contemporary and is a very good dancer, but academically is not on par with the schools she is considering.</p>

<p>She is looking at Northwestern for its dance program, as well as NYU Tisch. </p>

<p>She has about a 3.8-3.9 weighted GPA and SAT scores of around 1200-1300 out of 1600.</p>

<p>I was under the conception that grades and SAT scores for liberal arts schools, such as Northwestern, are critical (in that they would not accept a student who is strong in dance, but ultimately does not reach their standards academically), but she seems to disagree. She believes that the audition is ultimately the primary part of admission, and as long as you have average grades, scores, and extra-curriculars, a great audition would be your in.</p>

<p>I know nothing about dance or majoring in it in college, but I fear that she is misinformed. She asked if I could find out for her. What do you guys think?</p>

<p>I am pretty sure that for Northwestern and NYU you must be academically accepted and artistically accepted to be finally accepted into the university. These two step are independent of each other - thus you can be accepted academically but not get into the dance program, so no admittance. Or you can be accepted artitsically but rejected academically and it is a no to admittance.</p>

<p>So your friend should check carefully to see where her grades and SATs put her in the range of admitted students to assess her chance of academic acceptance.</p>

<p>Generally, artistically-talented students are given some break on scores/grades but not a total pass. If they’re seriously inadequate, not only are they going to get rejected, but they SHOULD get rejected, because they would be incapable of doing the work once they get to Difficult U. However, the student the OP describes has decent if not superlative scores/grades.</p>

<p>The size of the break given artsy students varies from school to school. My impression is that a dance program that is part of a separate administrative entity–a school of music or theater–is going to value performing talent per se more highly than a liberal arts university that simply has a strong dance department. That’s because the independent arts schools often do their own admissions, whereas the departments merely advise the general admissions committees, so their candidates are competing in the same pool with the more academically talented kids.</p>

<p>I know that at most of the top dance schools they hold your academic acceptance until you audition. If they want you, you usually get in unless you are really bad academically. The reason for this is that you are taking a minimum of academic classes. My daughter has a friend at Point park and she only took one academic class per semester. Hope this helps</p>

<p>DD’s stats were very similar to the OP’s suggested level and she looked at NYU and Northwestern and was well outside of their range - and the academic admission is separate from the artistic, so we she didn’t apply there. Point Park, which is where she is gong, has SIGNIFICANTLY lower academic medians than the 2 the OP listed.
It varies from school to school, so it is probably best to talk directly to a school about how they balance the artistic and academic sides of the admissions process. Most places will be very upfront about telling people how these are balanced.</p>

<p>From collegeboard.com:</p>

<p>NYU
SAT Critical Reading: 610 - 710
SAT Math: 600 - 720 </p>

<p>Northwestern
SAT Critical Reading: 670 - 750
SAT Math: 690 - 780 </p>

<p>She’s within NYU’s range even if academics is key.</p>

<p>My daughter just graduated from Tisch with a BFA in Dance. For Tisch it is 50% academic and 50% audition except for the dance department. That is more like 75% audition. They don’t like to let people know this, but that is really the truth.</p>

<p>That’s interesting and makes a lot of sense, simply because you’re clearly not doing as much academic schoolwork, so your academic success in high school is not necessarily a great indicator of how successful you will be in dance.</p>

<p>This sounds odd, but I know this girl hasn’t won any awards or competed at all, and is attending her first ever intensive at Mercyherst this summer going into her senior year. Does this affect her admissions at all? Does it matter what your dance resume says as long as you can be successful in your audition?</p>

<p>I’ll be interested to hear what more experienced posters have to say, but it seems to me that it depends very much on where she auditions - how competitive are the college programs she might be interested in?</p>

<p>Also, I don’t think it’s the dance resume per se that gets an applicant in. But an applicant who has done selective SIs has had the benefit of their excellent training (which is often better training than the student receives at a home studio). And a student who has been selected for these SIs has already demonstrated the requisite level of talent and training to even be accepted.</p>

<p>My d knows several students at Mercyhurst (none of whom has done the SI there, I believe) who are happy with the college program and seem to be making great progress.</p>

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<p>The better the talent the higher the break, especially with programs like Tisch, IU, CCM, and programs know for turning out dancers. With Northwestern, I don’t know if dance ability has any trump/hook power in admissions.</p>

<p>Dear Daretorun,
I will say that most competitive schools will look at your dance resume. If she is only attending her first “intensive” this summer she may have to really rely on her dance teacher to help her. Alot of students are very good for their studio but then get out in the big world of dance and find they are lacking. We have tried to find as much outside intensives and workshops for our dd to build her resume. We have also tried to look at our daughter as realistically as we can. The best you can do is go and look at alot of the schools and find the right fit. Having said that sometime you find a student who has done no outside things and is an incredible dancer. That is rare though. Schools want to see that you are trying new teachers and styles. They also want to see where you have auditioned sucessfully. Hope this helps.</p>

<p>That really does help. I know she is looking at very competitive programs, she’s thinking of applying to Julliard, Point Park, SUNY Purchase, NYU Tisch and the likes, as well as top liberal art universities (such as Northwestern) that offer dance as a major. </p>

<p>I think the fact that her ballet teacher loves her very much (favors her) as does her hip hop and jazz studio, with the combination of her friends telling her how amazing she is (she is very good and has been dancing for a very long time) has made her a little cocky! But she does really want this and she is very talented. She wants to know everything that she could possibly know to help her succeed!</p>

<p>Are there any good sites out there focused more on dancing in college? She knows about ballet talk but as she intends to concentrate on modern and wants to go to college, she wants to know if there is a better resource?</p>

<p>You guys are absolutely wonderful and knowledgeable! Thank you so much.</p>

<p>i have a friend at NU; she was admitted academically and said you basically signed up for the dance major after.</p>

<p>Juilliard was fine with a GED, actually.</p>

<p>I think the question to ask is whether you are applying to a program which offers a BFA (usually a conservatory) or a BA in dance. A conservatory will be interested in your dance skills above all else. A BA program will probably not even require an audition, so your dance skills do not matter at all. That said, there are a number of small liberal arts schools with excellent dance programs which do not require submission of SATs. Obviously they are judging your merit on more than just academics, so dance skill could have a large influence.</p>

<p>She should get the latest edition of Dance magazine’s “College Guide”. It has a comprehensive listing and breakdown of all college dance programs, useful articles and a blurb on each school/dance program offered. It’s a useful resource.</p>

<p>Yes, I just bought that, too, and it was very useful. It doesn’t cover every school though, so it is not comprehensive. For the colleges that I know something about; however, it seemed quite accurate. It was also very good about catching the nuances in the colleges’ approach to dance. I was interested that some emphasize individualism and an intellectual approach to dance making, others emphasize technique, and others are competition oriented.</p>

<p>She actually got a copy just yesterday! It was very useful, she said. She wants a BFA I believe, because she wants to dance for a company (not a ballet, however). She thinks she really needs that BFA in order to really be competitive.</p>

<p>daretorun, I don’t think it is the BFA itself that means anything at all to a company (ballet or otherwise), but rather the maturity and self-knowledge that is acquired during the journey through a BFA. But, I can’t say that for sure.</p>

<p>I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t think directors (ballet or otherwise) use a degree of any type or no degree as one of their ‘weeding out’ mechanisms. As always, I think the audition is the foot in the door and the resume is reviewed to give the director a sense as to where the dancer has been in terms of getting a feel if it seems compatible with his/her vision, whether there are common training grounds, similar training grounds, or mutual folks that the AD might be able to call for a reference.</p>

<p>Of course, I have no inside knowledge of the workings of an AD’s mind, but I have yet to see an audition requirement of “BFA required or preferred”.</p>

<p>But if she means she needs the BFA to be more competitive in terms of maintaining/raising her personal skill level (versus a BA), then that’s different and it is certainly something she will want to focus in on as she evaluates the various programs and options.</p>

<p>While you will find it rare to REQUIRE a BFA for a position in a modern company, my opinion is that it is the journey, the contacts, the exposure to high-profile cutting edge choreographers during the 4 year program which will make the difference at hiring time. The fact that the choreographer/AD knows and has worked with the dancer previously without having actually auditioned and hired them in the first place, as they were just a part of the class group, helps tremendously. In this way, you have essentially survived your first audition.</p>