My DD is currently a HS sophomore and a competition dancer starting to look at colleges and building her list. I have been reading this forum for some time now and found it very helpful and friendly to dancers of all backgrounds and would love to get some opinions.
DD is not planning for a career in dance but dance has always been a huge part of her life so she is hoping to either minor or double-major. She doesn’t have a specific career or major in mind yet but is more of a math/science than English/history type of student. She is also considering pre-med. As far as her grades, I would consider her an A/B student. All her core classes are honors, next year she’ll be taking one AP as well (max is two APs). So a good solid student but definitely not in the top 10% group.
Current dance schedule - ballet, contemporary/lyrical, jazz about 7-8 hrs a week including 1.5 hrs of pointe work plus several additional hrs of rehearsals. DD is a very dedicated dancer who is often commended by her teachers for her progressive improvement but she is by no means a professional ballerina. She does however prefer ballet and lyrical/contemporary to jazz and other styles and has attended a ballet SI and doing a 3-week ballet SI this year. In college, she would also like to focus more on ballet and contemporary so a pure modern program or a dance company performing at athletic events wouldn’t be a good match for her.
We are in the category where we don’t qualify for Fin.Aid but have to put a limit on cost so that is an important consideration as well. We are fortunate that some OOS public schools such as JMU are in our budget (~40K). She would need merit or talent scholarships for more expensive OOS schools. In order for her to attend a private school, she would need merit aid to get the total cost down to $40-45K.
Some schools that we are planning to check out so far: Muhlenberg (visited), JMU, Dickinson, Goucher, Rutgers (in-state but could be too modern-focused), UGA (may be too much of a reach). I am encouraging her for now to be flexible about the size of the school and the location as she has some time to think about that. For now, she doesn’t mind being far away from home.
Attending a city school and taking ballet outside of school is also an option but I am not sure whether this is any easier to find and build into the schedule and whether those kids have any opportunities to perform which college dance students usually have. Would appreciate any suggestions on that option as well.
Check out Ohio University. If she chooses to go into pre-med she can study nearly any major so long as she completes the required courses. As for dancing OU offers both a BFA and a BA in dance as well as three dance minors, Dance Performance, Dance History and Dance Somatics (you have to be a sophomore and have a 3.0 in your courses in your major). The campus is beautiful, it is a good school that while selective is not overly selective and tends to give fair scholarships to out of state students with good grades.
If it isn’t too far away, you might want to look into Tulane. Their program seems to be pretty balanced between modern and ballet, so it might be too much modern for your D, but if she thinks she wants to go the pre-med route, they have a program called the Creative PreMedical Scholars Program (just google it to get the details). Basically you can major in any liberal arts major, and as long as you take all the pre-med requirements each year and maintain a 3.6 GPA, you are automatically accepted to Tulane’s Med school without having to take the MCAT. S has a friend who is a freshman theatre major who is in the program, and she is really loving it.
University of Michigan also allows double majors and has strong ballet and modern, but admissions to the dance program are quite competitive, so it might not be what your D is looking for. S visited Muhlenberg and loved their program, but the school itself was smaller than what he wanted in a college. But it definitely looked like a great program for people wanting to double major and still get good training!
Dance magazine has a college guide that lists details on a lot of programs, so you might want to check that out when they put the updated one out in the fall.
I really appreciate your suggestions. Lvvcsf, I haven’t heard about Ohio University until I read about it here on CC. It is good to know they have dance, we’ll check it out.
Zebrarunner, that program you mentioned at Tulane is such a great option. I am sure it is very competitive but the fact that they even offer it signals that it is possible to combine things like dance and science or pre-med at Tulane (which as I am learning is not true everywhere). The dance program sounds really good too including the minor. Of course DD would need to not only get in but with a good scholarship in order to be able to afford Tulane. We’ll see how she does on the SAT and whether she is able to improve her GPA next year. UMichigan is probably not the right direction. Besides the selectivity and the cost, it seems they have only a BFA, no BA or a minor. While she would I am sure love to be in a BFA program, it is probably not compatible with another major. I am saying “probably” because that what I understand so far about BA vs BFA.
redpoodles, Dickinson gets my vote too, same issue with the cost however as it would be with Tulane. I would love to see those schools happen for her but need to keep looking for more realistic options as well.
As far as Mercyhurst, Butler and U. Utah, do I understand it correctly that those ballet programs are extremely selective for dancers and would also be more appropriate for those planning on a career in ballet and therefore would eliminate a possibility of double-majoring?
Yes, those programs would be more selective for ballet. I also agree that double majoring or even minoring in a science would be very difficult and possibly even discouraged in a BFA program. Dance and science are both very time consuming. For what you describe, Goucher and Muhlenberg would be at the top of my list. It sounds like you are in NJ, so she should also look at Rider. Students can take ballet at Princeton Ballet School for credit. I have actually been in some of the classes those students can take and they are definitely not the sort of class a dancer in a conservatory setting would be happy with, but they would be just right for a dancer like yours. Rider also has an active dance community on campus.
Oh, I believe Butler has classes for non-dance majors. That actually might be a possibility.
My suggestion would be to also look for schools that have active dance programs, not necessarily for credit. I realize Princeton U is out of reach, but it is an example of a school with a very active extracurricular dance program. Something like that could be ideal.
Also, here’s an observation I’ve made in many years of watching dance students. So many leave high school wanting to do ballet and ballet only or contemporary ballet but come out of college as modern dancers. There’s something that seems to happen along the way. I would not rule anything out. Even Mason Gross at RU has good ballet and contemporary. 2 of the dancers I know there now have very strong ballet backgrounds and are definitely more contemporary dancers than pure modern.
Yep, we are in NJ, Rider dance options sound interesting. D is looking for academically stronger schools so we haven’t actually looked at what Rider offers but will check it out and I am definitely planning to visit Goucher with her.
I do think that a very active extracurricular dance program could be ideal for her. It seems that Princeton’s program is pretty unique though (http://arts.princeton.edu/academics/dance/co-curricular-offerings/ - this is what you are taking about, is that correct?). I know that Harvard and perhaps Vanderbilt have something similar but so far, I haven’t come across schools within D’s reach academically and financially that would have a program like that. But how does one even find out?
As far as ballet vs modern, I appreciate what you are saying about the students becoming more interested in modern as they get older (perhaps more freedom for self-expression? who knows…) But knowing D’s personality, I don’t see her as a modern dancer type and I am not surprised at all that she is not interested in the style that much. It doesn’t mean being against taking classes in modern just that she would like ballet still be the foundation.
My D is a dancer, years of pre-professional dance company, danced 10 hours/week in high school plus performances. She knew early on she wasn’t going to dance professionally, but really enjoyed dance and didn’t want to give it up completely.
She chose Berry College in Rome, Georgia for their Chemistry major, and they also have a Dance Major. It is not a quality program, but it gives her the break from academic classes, a couple easy A grades, and she mingles with the dance students and gets some exercise. And they have a couple performances each year.
As you search for the right fit, take into consideration that the better dance programs might require more of a commitment than a serious pre-med student would want to take on. We are geared to look for “the best” for our kids, and I was unsure if my D would be happy with a program that didn’t stress proper technique, and wasn’t up to par in the ballet world.
Even D’s former dance teacher counseled her to go to the city ballet company. The problem with that was my D had no car, and couldn’t sacrifice the time and energy to get off campus even if she had a car. Dancing on campus was simpler, didn’t cost extra, and D got to make friends with fellow dancers on campus.
Good luck with your search. Once a dancer, always a dancer…
Yes, I also suggest Loyola Chicago. D auditioned and was accepted there, but declined because she felt it was not a serious enough dance program. It is a fairly new program with a BA only, with heavy emphasis on ballet. Though she loved the school and the head of the department and dance faculty, she would like to dance professionally and most of the girls we spoke with during auditions were wanting to double major-many in sciences. Though it is a private school with hefty tuition, D was offered very generous merit aid.
Have you looked at dance programs in Texas or is that too far? If not, SMU, TCU, or Sam Houston might be good options. What about going to college in NYC and then going to Steps or Broadway Dance Center when she has time? Case Western Reserve and College of Wooster both give performing arts scholarships for non-dance majors so those might be a couple more to look into.
I have a sophomore S that is a dancer and wants to keep dancing in college so I’m constantly searching. I’ll be following this thread. Thanks for starting it.