<p>My daughter was just accepted into the Fordham-Ailey program......we have some questions in making our decision between this program and the Purchase Dance Program.......are there any students or parents here that could answer some questions?</p>
<p>Sorry it has taken me sooo long to respond but I don't post very often and I couldn't remember my password; nonetheless I am back. </p>
<p>Well, my daughter is currently a freshman in the BFA program and was accepted to the Purchase program last year. She decided on Ailey b/c there is a percpetion that Purchase concentrates more on the classical ballet dancer even though they advertise themselves as purely modern;of course all modern program need to have a good ballet base but in some respects we heard that their training is so ballet intense that they could very well be training dancers that aspire for ballet companies. </p>
<p>My daughter is a pretty good dancer and is very well trained in ballet but did not want to have that as her main focus as she does not aspire to perform in a ballet company. She wanted to keep up her training but also be trained in other areas of dance. Additionally, she has more of the Ailey body type which we heard was an issue with Purchase; body type that is...</p>
<p>I am purely specualting because I do not know this first hand but my daughter has always heard the comments about body type since puberty and we just didnt want to risk it. Other than that I have heard nothing but good things about the program.</p>
<p>Another reason we opted for Ailey was the reputation of Fordham and the fact that academically the program is strong and my daughter wasn't willing to sacrifice one for the other...she wanted strong academics and a strong dance program. </p>
<p>She is very happy there and feels challenged in every aspect. If you have additional questions, please feel free to contact me. Also, there is a bunch of information on balletalert.com; just search for fordham-ailey...Hope this helps:_)</p>