conservatory program without housing

College Majors Dance Major
1

<p>Does anyone have an under 18 dancer who wants to do a trainee, preprofessional or conservatory program for the last year of high school, but the program does not provide housing? Did you move with your child? Did you find a place for her/him to live, and how did you do that? Residence club, roommate, host family? </p>

<p>Do you have regrets? Did your child finish high school online? </p>

<p>We have been thinking about this, and despite initial "can-do" enthusiasm, are finding it harder and harder to make a reality. Waiting a year is fine, but training at home is not really adequate anymore so we are in a bind.</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

2

<p>My daughter did this in NYC during the last semester of her senior year. She completed her last remaining credits through her high school with her teachers on-line and with special projects. P.E. required the cooperation of the dance program to submit weekly documentation.
Finding satisfactory residence was key. She networked with everyone she knew until the sister of a friend of a teacher offered to rent her a room. Ideal would have been to share an apartment with someone also in the program, but we weren’t able to arrange that.
My daughter is very happy with her choice. We “armed” her with a personal alarm, and she texted me each day/evening when she arrived home. It takes a very mature and independent “kid” to pull it off (and nerves of steel on the part of parents).</p>

3

<p>Thank you, very helpful. Our daughter’s high school has been very flexible and helpful, and, for last couple of years, she has only gone to school for the classes themselves, takes 3 there, and 2 online.</p>

<p>Can you tell me a little about the personal alarm? You picked exactly my biggest concern, which is a 17 year-old getting to and from an urban studio.</p>

<p>Our daughter has been taking the train in for 2 years, into our nearest city, and the studio she goes to is not in a great area either, so she is street smart. But, as a parent, that feels okay because it is familiar to all of us. This is irrational, but it is just the way it is: a city farther from home seems less safe!</p>

<p>The situation you describe, with a sister of a friend of a teacher, is the kind of fortuitous thing we are still hoping will pop up. </p>

<p>I am glad your daughter was happy with her arrangement, that she graduated, and I wish her all the joy she deserves for her hard work to dance!</p>

4

<p>My daughter did two different programs that did not provide housing. The first was in Washington, D.C. She had just turned 17 and she lived in an apartment two blocks from the studio, with a grocery store across the street, a pharmacy across the street, and the bus stop right outside the apartment building. She had attended the summer intensive program for the two immediately preceding summers, so she ‘knew’ the area, and really did not need to travel far for anything. She lived with a second year student a couple years older than she (who was well-known to the teachers and spoken highly of). How our daughter came to that living arrangement is a long story . . . . Essentially, she was someone in the program looking for a roommate and the school put us in touch with her. We lucked out. She was delightful; her mother was easy to work with long-distance regarding rent checks; and she and our daughter remain close friends even though they have both moved to different cities.</p>

<p>Honestly, I couldn’t bring myself to put her in a host family situation. I thought the 19-year old second year student was a better plan.</p>

<p>Our daughter did finish high school on-line (after three years instead of four) while in D.C. We checked out a number of programs and, unfortunately, the one that we had settled on while making the decision to permit this ‘deal’ turned out to be unworkable. So, we went with our second choice. I’m not sure I would have agreed to the deal if I’d realized the first choice program wasn’t viable. But we’d committed too far to back out when I realized the Stanford program was viable in terms of ‘real time’ class times.</p>

<p>Daughter has a lot of self-discipline and was able to remain ‘on task’ and complete the on-line courses without any real issues. She had had previous experience with such classes while in a bricks and mortar school, so she knew what she was getting into. Other dancers had much more difficulty keeping on track with the online courses. Many really don’t like them. </p>

<p>She also had lived the previous year at a ballet residency school in a dorm with RAs, so the adjustments to being away from home and being more dependent on herself was a bit more gradual than if she had started in a no-housing-provided situation. She will admit that that first year moving to a residency (at age 16) was really more difficult in terms of handling things on her own than she expected and that she felt she really grew up a lot very fast. She will also be the first to say that without that year in the residency situation she would not have really been prepared to live in the D.C. situation although she would have thought she was. (Cool how they learn to assess those thing.)</p>

<p>I was pretty sure they would revoke my “mom’s license” for ever agreeing to that D.C. arrangement. But, she really did remarkably well. I don’t think she really did a fabulous job with nutrition, but other than that, I think she did okay. Definitely had to learn to make decisions and she did.</p>

<p>The following year, she moved cross-country to another post-grad training program and lived in a city she really was not familiar with that required a lot of travel on various public transportation lines and modes (buses, trains, metros) with lots of transfers. She learned to navigate that pretty effortlessly, learned where the groceries were, took a serious approach to nutrition, and really is quite impressive to me. </p>

<p>We lucked out in terms of housing in that a family member had a childhood home available for rental. She selected a roommate also starting the program and her uncle met her and showed her the bus/metro route and location of grocery stores to get her started. From there she learned a lot about the city, etc from her classmates and her teachers at the program. </p>

<p>She considers each of the prior situations to be building blocks for where she is now, a college kid in a BFA program who does not live on campus, totally responsible for herself (well, except for the parental bank), her transportation, and her meals, etc. she uses Craig’s List like a pro for job searches, housing, etc. Very self-sufficient.</p>

<p>As for the academics, well, I don’t think we did her any real favors with the online high school, but it was the only option to go along with the D.C. program, which we felt was the best training option for her at the time. She did quite well, but I think she would have gotten more out of a bricks and mortar school. She agrees that perhaps the academics weren’t as challenging as we would have liked for her, but they were good. She adamantly disagrees that she would have gotten anything more out of a bricks and mortar school as she insists high school was just plain boring. She is much more interested in the college level courses and actually sought out adult education courses prior to matriculating into the BFA program last fall.</p>

5

<p>My daughter did two different programs that did not provide housing. The first was in Washington, D.C. She had just turned 17 and she lived in an apartment two blocks from the studio, with a grocery store across the street, a pharmacy across the street, and the bus stop right outside the apartment building. She had attended the summer intensive program for the two immediately preceding summers, so she ‘knew’ the area, and really did not need to travel far for anything. She lived with a second year student a couple years older than she (who was well-known to the teachers and spoken highly of). How our daughter came to that living arrangement is a long story . . . . Essentially, she was someone in the program looking for a roommate and the school put us in touch with her. We lucked out. She was delightful; her mother was easy to work with long-distance regarding rent checks; and she and our daughter remain close friends even though they have both moved to different cities.</p>

<p>Honestly, I couldn’t bring myself to put her in a host family situation. I thought the 19-year old second year student was a better plan.</p>

<p>Our daughter did finish high school on-line (after three years instead of four) while in D.C. We checked out a number of programs and, unfortunately, the one that we had settled on while making the decision to permit this ‘deal’ turned out to be unworkable. So, we went with our second choice. I’m not sure I would have agreed to the deal if I’d realized the first choice program wasn’t viable. But we’d committed too far to back out when I realized the Stanford program was viable in terms of ‘real time’ class times.</p>

<p>Daughter has a lot of self-discipline and was able to remain ‘on task’ and complete the on-line courses without any real issues. She had had previous experience with such classes while in a bricks and mortar school, so she knew what she was getting into. Other dancers had much more difficulty keeping on track with the online courses. Many really don’t like them. </p>

<p>She also had lived the previous year at a ballet residency school in a dorm with RAs, so the adjustments to being away from home and being more dependent on herself was a bit more gradual than if she had started in a no-housing-provided situation. She will admit that that first year moving to a residency (at age 16) was really more difficult in terms of handling things on her own than she expected and that she felt she really grew up a lot very fast. She will also be the first to say that without that year in the residency situation she would not have really been prepared to live in the D.C. situation although she would have thought she was. (Cool how they learn to assess those thing.)</p>

<p>I was pretty sure they would revoke my “mom’s license” for ever agreeing to that D.C. arrangement. But, she really did remarkably well. I don’t think she really did a fabulous job with nutrition, but other than that, I think she did okay. Definitely had to learn to make decisions and she did.</p>

<p>The following year, she moved cross-country to another post-grad training program and lived in a city she really was not familiar with that required a lot of travel on various public transportation lines and modes (buses, trains, metros) with lots of transfers. She learned to navigate that pretty effortlessly, learned where the groceries were, took a serious approach to nutrition, and really is quite impressive to me. </p>

<p>We lucked out in terms of housing in that a family member had a childhood home available for rental. She selected a roommate also starting the program and her uncle met her and showed her the bus/metro route and location of grocery stores to get her started. From there she learned a lot about the city, etc from her classmates and her teachers at the program. </p>

<p>She considers each of the prior situations to be building blocks for where she is now, a college kid in a BFA program who does not live on campus, totally responsible for herself (well, except for the parental bank), her transportation, and her meals, etc. she uses Craig’s List like a pro for job searches, housing, etc. Very self-sufficient.</p>

<p>As for the academics, well, I don’t think we did her any real favors with the online high school, but it was the only option to go along with the D.C. program, which we felt was the best training option for her at the time. She did quite well, but I think she would have gotten more out of a bricks and mortar school. She agrees that perhaps the academics weren’t as challenging as we would have liked for her, but they were good. She adamantly disagrees that she would have gotten anything more out of a bricks and mortar school as she insists high school was just plain boring. She is much more interested in the college level courses and actually sought out adult education courses prior to matriculating into the BFA program last fall.</p>

6

<p>Thank you Treemaven and congratulations on your daughter’s maturity. I love your description of the building blocks that occurred to get your daughter where she is now, comfortably.</p>

<p>Finding another a slightly older student to room with would be ideal. I have e-mailed the program director, knowing she is busy, but just in case anything comes up.</p>

<p>Our daughter went to the regular high school for 2 classes last year and did online classes otherwise. She does not like the online courses much, and would probably try to do community college courses instead. She can graduate after taking only one English course, or choose to do more- my guess is she will opt for the one course.</p>

<p>The long posts you all have provided have been helpful, and I am going to have a long talk with my daughter one of these nights (she is, of course, away dancing!).</p>

<p>Thanks again to both of you!</p>

7

<p>Oh dear, I did not mean to post that long post twice! Perhaps a moderator could delete one.</p>

<p>Compmom, when considering the academic aspect, we insisted that she be able to complete all the AP and honors classes online that she would have taken if she’d remained in a traditional school. She was able to do that. </p>

<p>We thought we’d pretty much covered the academic bases, but as she is our oldest, we really didn’t know all that went into college applications. Now that our second is a rising senior (who has stayed in traditional school), I can see where DD missed out on a few crucial things for applying to the top tier schools. For instance, she went her freshman year to her home school—a very large school (3200 kids) that takes awhile to get the teachers familiar with the students. In fact, unless the student takes a less popular language (such as Latin), she would never repeat a teacher in the entire four years. As a serious dancer, she did not participate in extra-curriculars at school, so she did not have that forum for making those teacher recommendation contacts. </p>

<p>At her second public school (residential situation), the school was about half the size of her home school, but she was recognized as part of the ballet residency. The teachers knew her a little bit, but again, without extra-curricular participation, not so much. The head of guidance counseling, however, did come to know her and might have been a good contact in that regard. </p>

<p>As for the online year, her teachers never met her and only a few actually had reason to talk to her on the phone (which they were very willing to do). She was only in that program one year, so really not much time to really get to know her. She was a very dependable and easy student, so there was little contact other than the actual assignments. She typically completed her courses several months ahead of schedule, so even the usual checkpoint contacts weren’t necessary. I would say she had less contact with her teachers than is typical.</p>

<p>That particular online school does assign a college counselor who checked in regularly with both DD and me all year. She really worked with me to help DD understand what she needed to keep in place for later college applications. And, even after DD took the ‘gap’ year off, this college counselor willingly took on all the regular duties for college applications even though DD was no longer enrolled in the online school.</p>

<p>DD was convinced she would not attend college directly from high school–and as she had graduated a year early, we used what would have been her senior year as a gap year. I did insist that she apply to college anyway to keep options open, which she did, although she insisted she’d defer any acceptances. She applied to two BFA programs for dance and, if I remember, about four non-dance programs, all top-tier schools for which she had the grades, etc. Some more selective than others, but within reason.</p>

<p>Well, imagine my surprise when at spring break she casually mentioned that she’d decided to matriculate into one of the BFA programs to which she had been accepted. Her reasoning was very thoughtful and mature.</p>

<p>I will say both I and her college counselor were surprised that she did not get accepted into any of the non-dance programs. I had expected her not to get all, but I had thought, as had the college counselor, that she’d have a couple to choose from. </p>

<p>Now as I go through this with our second daughter with with her high school’s college counselor that has the advantage of knowing this one’s background, personality, and work ethic, I think DD was rather handicapped in not having had an opportunity to build some strong teacher recommendation bonds, college counselor bond, and by my inexperience in knowing how best to help her ‘package’ and highlight her strengths. At the time, I thought the common application left her sounding quite bland and undefined, but I didn’t know how to help her make herself more definitive.</p>

<p>The second child is more motivated to take college applications seriously, so with lessons learned via DD’s process, I have been more pro-active and inquiring about the process when we visit colleges and attend info sessions. As it is, I’m concerned about second child’s teacher recommendations (again, other than a single class each year, none of the teachers really knows her because she is heavily involved in a club sport that leaves little time for school extra-curriculars) and her actual guidance counselor (who doesn’t seem very interested). We are hoping the college counselor, who does know her, will be able to help shore up where needed. That and an athletic recruiting tip to go along with her high academics.</p>

<p>So, to the extent your DD has those strong teacher relationships (which my DD last had in middle school), make it a priority to keep those ties. Also, the more connection she can retain to her high school guidance counselors, the better she’ll be served when it comes time to apply for college.</p>

8

<p>Oh, as far as community college classes, you will want to check into the logistics of that thoroughly. At the D.C. program, DD’s roommate initially had signed up for a course, but had to drop it within the first week or so due to timing issues. Given that this dancer had lived in the city at the same location the previous year, I thought she’d worked it all out. But, the travel time on public transportation coupled with the rehearsal times for Nutcracker season, etc, simply made it logistically impossible.</p>

<p>That is another thing to consider with ‘real time’ classes. Does the training program your DD is considering have performances and rehearsals? When, how long (in terms of hours per day, which hours per day, and how many weeks)? How do those commitments jive with the test schedules, mid-terms, and finals for the community college? Colleges are not particularly accommodating when it comes to moving tests . . .</p>

<p>It was the ‘real time’ classes that ultimately prevented DD from enrolling in the Stanford online high school program. There were certain classes she was expected to participate in via web-cam and with the three hour time difference, the class would overlap with her actual dance classes, so it just didn’t work out. In addition, Stanford’s program operated on a ‘real time’ school year calendar, so with Nutcracker season falling within final exams, etc., it just wasn’t a workable deal. </p>

<p>With the online school DD did do, there were starting dates and certain times frames for completing the class. But in between, the student could set their own schedule, both as to when they did the work and how quickly they did the assigments. (There were some restrictions on how many assignments could be turned in at one time). For instance, DD typically did most of her school work on the weekends or during the mornings before dance classes. For the two months of intensive Nutcracker rehearsals and performances, she pretty much put her schoolwork on hold. Once those obligations were over, she cranked stuff out again—and still finished ahead of schedule on most classes.</p>

<p>So, particularly scope out the travel time involved for your DD to attend community college and make it back to dance classes, rehearsals, etc.</p>

9

<p>compmom, I just received your pm (and sent a response). Congrats and good luck to your daughter!</p>

10

<p>Treemaven, thanks again for an informative post. My daughter is much less focused on academics than yours, I would say. Right now, she is not interested in college or conservatory, although, like you, I am going to recommend that she keep all options open for next year. Good advice about the community college classes. Our daughter may just continue with the online program she used last year. Last year, she danced in a newly formed company that had a lot of rehearsing, plus her usual classes, and that was her first exposure to the kind of time demands she may run into. Luckily, she is my youngest (of 3) and I have learned the ropes a little, but with her goals and personality, a lot of what I learned with the other 2 do not apply! So hearing from others is so helpful. I hope your oldest is enjoying her BFA program and that your 2nd daughter is happy where she ends up, too.</p>

11

<p>jasmom, thank you as well and I will look into the alarm…you have covered the main things that I was going to look into… Take care!</p>

12

<p>The manager of the program has connected our daughter to 2 other students, and is also having some of the older students show her around some of the “residence clubs” in the city, which resemble dorms and are affordable, and close to the studio. You have both helped us feel this might be possible!</p>