<p>Just curious, for those that have responded on here. What criteria was most important to your dancer when deciding which schools to audition and apply to? Both academically and dance-wise.</p>
<p>Our daughter worked with her college admission advisor to create a list of schools that from an academic perspective included Reach, Target, and Safety schools, and the Director of her dance company created a list of Reach, Target, and Safety schools based upon her artistic assessment of our daughter. This included 2 non-audition programs. Her dance company Director is familiar with many of the programs across the country. These 2 lists combined, along with an understanding of how the schools consider the academic vs the artistic, helped her form her final list. Her older brother is a freshman in musical theater at the Boston Conservatory, and was accepted at 3 other audition BFA programs, so we were familiar with the general process for artistic admission. Some schools base admission almost solely on the artistic component, as long as academics are above a minimal threshold, while a few more equally weight the two. Overall, it makes the process more complex than those pursuing an academic degree, where it is easier to just consider grades and test scores. Academically, our daughter has very strong grades (she’s a disciplined, hard worker - like most dancers), and decent but not exceptional test scores, so we were relying a great deal on the assessment of her dance Director, who luckily has a lot of experience with getting kids into BFA dance programs.</p>
<p>THANK YOU SaratogaParent, that is exactly the kind of answer I was looking for. And exactly the kind of approach I tried to take with my daughter.<br>
It’s been interesting to see how the programs she has on the list have now been moved up or down by her afer we’ve visited all the schools, and participated in auditions, based on the strength and ‘well-roundedness’ of the dance program, but also on the strength of the academics.</p>
<p>Unlike SaratogaParent’s daughter, my DD is an average student with an 81 average and slightly below average test scores. Subsequently, we did not apply to schools that we did not think she could be academically admitted to. We chose one non-audition school, but ended up not applying after she received an acceptance to Shenandoah. My daughter was most concerned about the quality of dancers at every program and the overall reputation of the program. As my daughter is not the “academic” type, she was not as stressed about the academic piece (sad but true!) . The other thing that was important was how well-rounded the program was. She absolutely wanted a triple emphasis program, which limited the schools we applied to. Finally, after seeing performances at UB, Shenandoah and Point Park, my daughter decided that Point Park was her choice, despite the campus not being everything that she wanted. We were blown away by the caliber of dancers at Point Park and my daughter believed that she would be most challenged there. Moreover, I looked at the bios from a major “jazz-contemporary” company -Giordano’s and almost their entire company is made up of dancers from Point Park, UARTS and Uof A. That made me think Point Park did a fairly good job of preparing their dancers. I hope this helps. Thanks again everyone for the well-wishes and good luck to everyone.</p>
<p>I have a junior/rising senior dance major. When she was looking she had some strange criterion for choosing a school, but those reasons were important to her. First was she wanted it within driving distance from home, no more than 4 hours away. She wanted us to be able to come to her performances as much as possible. So far this has worked out well and I don’t think we have missed to many major performances at all. She also wanted a “campus” which was the top reason she did not like PPU and would not even audition there. She also had heard that at PP they weigh you and she felt dance is so competitive and full of pressure that she did not want this added pressure. She wanted a modern/ballet focus. She feels that is her weakest area, although seeing her last performance I feel she is really progressing and doing well and I don’t see it as a weak area any longer. She felt it was important to go to a school and become stronger in her weaker area, she loves tap and jazz and felt she was doing fine in those areas, always could use more work and ongoing training which she is receiving. She chose Slippery Rock University and has been so happy there. It is not well known but did get it’s first ranking in the top 45 dance programs, out of 600. She is learning and growing as a dancer and gaining more confidence in her abilites which is also extremely important.</p>
<p>Thanks for those thoughtful replies. It sure is different than a strictly academic pursuit, isn’t it?</p>
<p>I have been stalking this thread for a while–my daughter is only a junior. Just want to say thanks to everyone for their candid feedback on their kids. </p>
<p>We are in a tough spot because my daughter wants both a triple-track dance program and a really good dance team. And we won’t pay OOS tuition for another state school (our flagships are MN and WI). Hoping she refines her interests a bit over the coming months–or else accepts that she may have to make some tough choices.</p>
<p>Sally305 - we also did not at first look at OOS schools but Slippery Rock is actually discounts tuition by a lot if you keep a 3.0 GPA for those out of state. It is about $4000- $6000 per year less than our in-state schools here in Ohio. And that is for the upgraded dorms which are gorgeous - they have wood floors in the entrance way- with a refrigerator, microwave included - plus their own bathroom with a shower. My dd really didn’t like the idea of walking down the hall to take a shower. The regular dorms are another $2000 or so less than that. They are also very receptive to double majors- there are many dance programs that will not let you dbl major at all.</p>
<p>Just adding my two cents into the conversation here as I was in this same position last year, scrambling around for information while my daughter was applying for and auditioning for BFA dance programs. </p>
<p>One thing we learned is that there was something different about each process for each university, so there is really not “one” correct way to go about it. The best advice I can give is to apply to many schools, even the “long shots”. Even if you aren’t as strong academically, you may be accepted based on other factors including the strength of your audition, dance resume, extra-curricular, essay, etc. </p>
<p>The other best advice I can give is to prepare for your audition - including arriving early, warming up, staying focused, dressing to code, being well groomed, etc. I observed many dancers arriving at auditions chatting away (most arrived 20-30 minutes early and just sat and waited) while my D started her warmup one hour prior so she was ready to dance when the audition started. I was also surprised at those with messy hair and sloppy buns!</p>
<p>Not all auditions went well for my D and it was a long struggle waiting for all the decisions. She applied to seven, got accepted into four, all with a different story. She is now at Ailey-Fordham, the one we thought would be the hardest to get into, both academically and artistically. She received audition invitation from Ailey in mid December and auditioned in San Francisco in January. We originally were told to expect an admission decision in late March but since she was a transfer student, her application wasn’t even considered until June. We had almost given up at that point, but our perseverance finally paid off!</p>
<p>Audition season begins Jan 10th in LA for Boston Conservatory for my daughter - and her friend. Then they come fast and furious through February, including what looks like will be 3 in one week. Appreciate your advice quesera10.</p>
<p>DD just received her final acceptance, which was from UARTS and was awarded the Artist Grant. We are so excited. Now I will shift my focus to looking for private scholarships. If anyone has any advice as to where to look, I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks you to all for advice throughout this process. Good luck to everyone. :)</p>
<p>Congrats, dancemomdee! </p>
<p>My daughter heard from another school on Christmas Eve: she’s been accepted academically and to the dance program at Chapman, with a Dean’s scholarship. So she now has two acceptances to colleges and dance programs, both in CA. FAFSA is right around the corner - hopefully there will be some help there as we will have two kids in college beginning next fall.</p>
<p>Laurelj84 and Dancemomdee - congrats on the acceptances. Our daughter received her academic admission to Point Park today. Audition isn’t until March however.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone! Congrats laurelj84 and best of luck to your daughter saratogaparent!!</p>
<p>A couple of questions and comments/updates on our status -</p>
<p>@quesera10 - how is your daughter liking Fordham/Ailey? That is our D’s top choice at this point. She spent last summer there and loved it. Her audition is Jan 4th in Washington DC and she is nervous. Any words of advice??</p>
<p>@lammbb66 - where is the list of top dance programs that you reference? Is that from one of the dance magazines? Would love to see that list.</p>
<p>@Berricre8v - you are SO right about this process. My 19-year old went the service academy route and I thought that process was daunting. He is now a sophomore at the Naval Academy so thankfully he got what he wanted. This process is even more so with dual applications for both dance and academics at each school - yikes!</p>
<p>Our status as of today - 3 academic acceptances and 1 rejection out of 9 applications. 1 dance acceptance (haven’t received academic from this school yet), 1 dance rejection and 2 waitlists out of 4 auditions so far. Rejection from her #2 choice both academic and dance - she was so bummed and it really has given her confidence level a hit. The waitlisting has helped either… Anyone out there have any experience with wait lists??</p>
<p>Traveling out of state 4 times for the 5 pending auditions in the next 6 weeks!</p>
<p>So … at this point we don’t have both dance and academic acceptances from the same school yet! Holy Moly, I can’t wait for the stress of this process to be over.</p>
<p>Pmcolorado - I originally saw the ranking on her school’s website/newspaper. It is so unknown but has so many amazing professors. They teach at workshops all over the country and honestly, had not really heard of it until we talked to them at a college fair about 4 years ago. </p>
<p>I tried to find the source and one place it is listed is [url=<a href=“http://www.dance-colleges.com”>http://www.dance-colleges.com</a>]</p>
<p>Creative Colleges: A Guide for Student Actors, Artists, Dancers, Musicians and Writers." is the source for the article on her school’s site.</p>
<p>It is very stressful and waiting for the acceptances is nerve wracking. My DD was accepted to all of the schools she applied to which was really good but making that final decision was not easy.</p>
<p>Out of the ten schools I have applied to I have been academically accepted to 5 (one non-audition safety) auditioned for 2, and have the rest of my auditions in January and February. I just got the info for my Point Park audition 1/19 in NYC and I’m trying to finish up some audition applications. Not to brag or anything, but I have received some very nice scholarships from these schools as well as acceptances into their honors programs which makes me very excited, but also like it’s not a real acceptance because of the audition component. I feel like everyone else’s “normal” college process is so much easier compared to mine and I almost want to get angry at them when they complain lol. I do have a lot of friends going into the arts, either dance, music, or theatre so it’s comforting to talk to them about it.</p>
<p>I completely understand what you are saying JDancer, at least from a parental perspective. In knowing that the my daughter’s application process would be two-fold and after she decided not to stay in New England for college, we decided to apply to no more than five schools and decided to get all of our auditions done before January, so we would likely have some acceptances or rejections out of the way before the new year. Fortunately, the schools we applied to had rolling admissions, so that helped as well. Good luck to those who are waiting…I know it can be agonizing!!</p>
<p>Well today’s mail came and still nothing from Point Park. They said we would hear by the end of December. Today is the last day of 2013. Who knows? I’m very over this whole process already. DD has auditions in Jan., Feb., and March, it’s just agonizing already.</p>
<p>lammb and quesera, belated thanks for the great advice!</p>