<p>snowball & danas, if you are willing to share the names of the colleges your daughters attend(ed), that would give me helpful insight.</p>
<p>Fortunately my d has made the decision to pursue something other than dance as a profession (has never felt otherwise).</p>
<p>Goucher sounds like a good fit for her, unfortunately she already seems to have decided she doesn't want to go there (having decided sight unseen that she doesn't like Baltimore).</p>
<p>I can tell you that Goucher is absolutely gorgeous - it's not in Baltimore, it's in a beautiful suburb. It's also within walking distance of one of the largest malls I've ever been to (I'm from the Northeast, so I've never seen Mall of America).
<a href="http://www.towsontowncenter.com/html/index10.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.towsontowncenter.com/html/index10.asp</a>
The mall alone was enough to make my d consider it, but it wasn't a good fit for her.</p>
<p>Have you considered colleges in Chicago? There's quite a range, and certainly your D would be able to find someplace in Chicago to dance.</p>
<p>My dancer daughter is a high school freshman, but I'll have to keep Goucher on my mental list of possibilites for her. She visited Baltimore last year and, on her return home, announced that she wanted to live there! Baltimore, dance, and a huge mall....that would be a slice of heaven for my daughter!!!</p>
<p>If your D wants a city, a certain size school, a certain region of the country, to have ballet classes or ballet dance groups available, and has a GPA below 3.3, you might want to encourage her to not be so quick to take off viable options without seeing them. When creating a college list, and having college criteria (which everyone should have), and taking into account one's qualifications, not every school on the list is going to match up IDEALLY with EVERY criteria on their list. The hope is that each school will match SOME of the criteria on the list. Some may match better than others. She doesn't have to pick a school to attend yet, but simply to pick options to apply to and then see where she gets in. Once acceptances are in hand, she can determine which of her options most CLOSELY fits her list of criteria. Very few schools are ideal in every sort of way with regard to one's college criteria. Sometimes you have to give in one area to get in another. One school may be better in your major but not as great of a location as another, and so on. Goucher fits many criteria that you have mentioned so far that your D has. She may wish to visit before knocking it off the list. I know really good dancers who chose this college for a BA. A B student has a much better chance at Goucher than at Vandy, too. I had recommended Rollins as well. Rollins is a tad harder to get into than Goucher. Skidmore is also a great option though is a little harder than the two I just mentioned but may be appropriate (I don't know enough of your D's qualifications to say and this is very very rough estimate)...I realize it is not a warm climate, however. Have you looked at Sarah Lawrence?</p>
<p>I think Goucher probably deserves to be on the list of underrated LAC's in general, partly due to it being in Baltimore, which generally doesn't have a "romantic" rep as a college location.</p>
<p>I've never been to Baltimore, Friendship Airport being as close as I got, but I somehow don't think the decades-old image of post-industrial decrepitude and high crime match the current reality.</p>
<p>Well, I may pull parental rank in the case of Goucher, and insist that she visit, but it may lead to our "daughter refused to even get out of the car" moment.</p>
<p>My sense is that she is more apt to choose a college for reasons other than availability of dance (so far, a warm location seems the most important to her), and that is fine with me. I just want to make sure she knows the implications of her decisions.</p>
<p>I checked into Univ of Richmond, it may be possible, they have "University Dancers," by audition, a dance company that has company class three times a week.</p>
<p>In reading between the lines, daughter so far seems more willing to consider schools with more of the Southern college social scene -- Sarah Lawrence too granola-crunchy?-- daughter has spent time in NYC, doesn't seem keen to live there.</p>
<p>Daughter has prejudice against Baltimore, I have prejudice against Orlando...</p>
<p>Wake Forest?
American?
College of Charleston?</p>
<p>I still think Muhlenberg is good even if not as warm as she would like.</p>
<p>Ok...I've got Southern, warm, City.....has BALLET....has BFA Dance, BA Dance, Dance Minor, and a Dance Club/Company.....Tulane.</p>
<p>^^^ post #66</p>
<p>I concur about Goucher being under-appreciated. I think it was because it was originally all-female but less well-known than Vassar, etc. It still struggles to attract a balanced sex ratio. The school offers some partnerships with Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>The performance dance major D of an acquaintance of mine transferred to Goucher when she was disappointed in the ballet program at her first school.</p>
<p>I get to Baltimore every now and then and was there for a (non-Goucher) college visit this summer. Son and I had a great day visiting Fort McHenry following his college tour. The park ranger's presentation on the history of the Star Spangled Banner was excellent and makes the song resonate with me so much more. We then enjoyed crabcakes at a restaurant overlooking the Inner Harbor. </p>
<p>IMO Baltimore is a great college town - music (Peabody Institute), excellent aquarium, fun Inner Harbor scene, lots of history .... And some people are huge fans of Oriole Park ("the one that started the classic ballpark trend"). It is less expensive than Boston or NYC, plus has better school year weather, and I think is a real city on the rise. I believe students at any of the Baltimore colleges can attend events at any of the other schools, opening up lots of possibilities. The smaller size of the city seems to make every venue more accessible.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Oriole Park ("the one that started the classic ballpark trend")
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Only according to someone who's never seen Fenway Park! LOL</p>
<p>It's strange that modernist RFK is the fourth oldest baseball venue, surpassed by Fenway, Wrigley and Yankee Stadium. Only six months and one week to opening day in the National's new place...</p>
<p>Cold weather builds character. Of course, mine was built years ago and I only need occasional "refresher" experiences to keep it topped off. Ah, Chicago...when it's zero degrees and a 20-knot wind is coming off the lake.</p>
<p>Hoi, not to be indelicate, but your reading between the lines of your D's preferences sets of an alarm bell for me. Is your D's main reason for wanting to go to college a social experience?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Is your D's main reason for wanting to go to college a social experience?
[/quote]
Just because she is interested in a warm climate doesn't mean its only for the "social" scene. I think colleges and U's in Florida somehow continue to suffer from the association of nice weather with less than serious studies.</p>
<p>I'm not TheDad, but I took his post to not really be about Florida or warm states but about the strength of each criteria for college selection the student was using to select colleges. Certainly location is a factor to consider. Whether that criteria trumps academic offerings or EC offerings or size, or selectivity, etc. is what I think TheDad meant. So, as I wrote earlier, it is hard to have every school on one's list match up perfectly or ideally with each of their college criteria and so sometimes, one may give up size for location or give up location for program offerings, or give up location for fit, etc. I think he was questioning if location might not need to be the number one criteria in selecting a school, even if it is a consideration, as it should be. So, in this case, does she want to give up opportunities to continue dancing in any capacity just to be in a warm climate, etc. Which criteria is more important to her?</p>
<p>My daughter wants a warm climate -- she may not, at this point, feel comfortable assessing college course offerings, but she knows what kind of weather she likes! </p>
<p>Looking at colleges is intimidating, and different kids will have different starting points, even if parents can see what factors should be considered to find a good fit.</p>
<p>SF, my comment about academics was prompted by hoi's reading between the lines that one D's criteria seemed to be the social scene of a Southern college. There's a difference between determining whether one will be comfortable in a given social milieu at a given school, chosen for other reasons, and making social milieu a determining criterion of where one attends college.</p>
<p>I see you posted this two years ago, but my daughter is in a similar situation…she’s only a junior in High school, but we’ve started our search. She is currently in a dance company that performs jazz, modern, hip hop, tap,and ballet…doesn’t want to major in dance, but wants to keep dancing. An important question for anyone in a similar situation is whether a Dance program at a particular school restricts their Advanced dance classes to Dance Majors…(For example, George Mason has a good dance program, but only Dance majors are allowed to take their advanced classes) My son is also a dancer/choreographer from the same company, with strong academics, who didn’t want to major in dance. He is now a senior at Yale, which has NO dance program to speak of… However, they have an EXCELLENT variety of student-led dance groups (membership via audition), and through his membership in 3 separate groups (Yaledancers (modern, jazz, ballet), Taps, and RB (a hip hop group), he has been able to dance, choreograph and grow. Point being that, if you find a school that appeals for other reasons, check out student-led options for dance/performance.</p>
<p>My daughter is at the University of South Carolina, and I would say it is definitely worth checking out for any serious dance student who wants to continue dancing without majoring in dance (and I extensively researched the topic…).</p>
<p>Many of UC Berkeley’s dance major classes are open to non-majors, though it may be difficult to fit those into one’s schedule. There are, however, excellent dance classes offered through the Physical Education activity program, taught by very qualified dance faculty.</p>