This describes my D18 almost exactly (35 ACT, 4.0 GPA, etc and 15 years of dance, wants to dance professionally with a focus on ballet, but looking at college first).
We are now in the middle of the process so we’ll see what happens, but we decided to take a mixed approach, with some top ballet programs and some top academic schools and some that are slightly less prestigious but offer a reasonable combination of both. We ruled out some possibilities on grounds of cost (we will get minimal need-based aid in most cases), including NYU, Michigan, Barnard.
We put Indiana, Oklahoma and Utah in the top ballet programs, probably in that order (along with a lottery ticket at Julliard). The big advantage of the latter two is that they are nearly free for top students (Oklahoma for NMF and Utah for 4.0 GPA). Oklahoma was keen to tell us they have more National Merit scholars than any other school in the country and they are fine with dancers in the Honors College, dual majors, etc.
We put Berkeley, UCLA (and a lottery ticket at Princeton) in the top academic programs. These two should be plausible reach schools as we are in CA, they are also quite affordable with in-state tuition.
Then we put schools like Fordham, Butler, USC, Chapman and multiple other UCs in the combination bucket. All with decent merit for high academics (or in state tuition) and (in several cases) not quite as competitive for the dance programs.
So hopefully we will get to next April with some choices in two or three of these categories. And then we’ll see. The key thing to note is that ballet selectivity at many of these schools is comparable to Ivy league academic selectivity.
Lessons so far: this requires lots of work, lots of auditions, lots of videos for pre-screening. And a lot of cost for applications, travel to auditions etc. I would certainly advise doing a summer program at one of the top ballet programs to help with admissions there. And do as much as possible in terms of essays (and potentially even videos) over the summer.