Double majoring with a Dance BFA

I was doing some calculations about the number of credits my D18 will need for a double major and thought this might be informative to those applying for dance BFAs who expect their kids will double major (which is what we assumed last year). Also it would be helpful to get feedback from those who’ve already been through the process.

Her college specifies that a bachelors degree is 120-125 semester credits, i.e. 15-16 credits on average for 8 semesters, assuming that she wants to be done in four years (her scholarship covers 8 semesters and summers are priced at in-state rates so that’s by far the most affordable option). However, her ballet BFA has a minimum of 82 credits in her major, and she is interested in doing a second major. Clearly lab sciences (~80 major credits) and engineering (~95-100 major credits) are completely impossible, but the shorter majors (e.g. math, poli sci, econ) which need 50-60 major credits might be more feasible. But then adding in general ed and honors courses (a minimum of 18 credits, even though she has AP credits that get her out of another 16 credits) the total goes up to at least 150-155 credits.

And given that her Ballet classes have a fixed schedule of 4.5-5.5 hours of studio and other class time five days a week, plus additional performance rehearsals in the afternoons, it is very difficult to fit in the required sequenced classes for the second major without doing courses in the summer. Realistically it looks like it will only be possible to do one additional course each semester in sophomore and junior years, unless she doesn’t do performances, which would be pretty pointless for a BFA student. So she would end up with roughly 16-17 credits per semester (ballet plus one second major course) and still have to do about 6-9 credits (2-3 courses) every summer after freshman, sophomore and junior years. Its hard to do more than 2-3 courses and consolidate it into 2 summers because of sequencing and because only a subset of the courses are offered each summer. So that highlights how difficult this would be, even with what we had assumed were plenty of AP credits (her transcript actually shows 54 credits from her 9 APs but those will only enable her to avoid 16 credits worth of college courses).

I’d be interested to hear from others who’ve been through this - did any of your kids spend every summer at college? Or did they take longer than 4 years or just give up on the idea of a double major? How did they fit in dance opportunities or job internships? And if they were cramming in lots of courses to finish the double major during senior year, did they have any time to look for a job or audition for paid performing roles?

From what I’ve learned (so far), dancers that intend to double major can really only do so in four years if if they go the BA route and not the BFA route. There are only a few schools that will allow a minor with a Dance BFA.

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As we learned more about double major requirements (and how demanding it would be on top of dance!), we wanted to be sure all options were open so we have been using dual enrollment rather than AP in high school and carefully selecting courses to fulfill General Ed that will for sure transfer to all the colleges we are looking at for double major purposes. My DD may actually not be double majoring but almost everywhere we are looking - both state and private - she has completed all but their specific freshman course for General Ed. We also chose to CLEP rather than AP for 2 sciences (1 Biology & 1 Chemistry) (some schools just take 1 or the other) and math. I am so grateful someone had this suggestion when we started sophomore year as it will save her a ton of stress whether or not she decides to double major.

That said, some schools make it much easier to navigate. SMU for example, strongly encourages double major and double minor and literally designs a program for and woh you to make it all work. Many schools have several programs that they have already navigated the double major issue with dance and it fits within the time frame without crazy summer loads. Of course, it depends on what they want to study and if that is one of the programs pre-designed to double major. I would check with the schools and you may be surprised that more courses overlap than you think.

And there may be other options for some of the General Ed as well. Like an online course over a winter semester (Xmas break) from another school or even CLEP.

Good luck helping her navigate the course loads and deciding where it works best for her! Mine is also a Senior and this year is a bit of a wild ride so far already!

Thanks @NavigatingMom. I think we are in as good a shape as we could be with general ed, since the only courses she needs to do are for upper division general ed (diversity, international and writing) plus her required honors courses.

But I’m sure it is school specific what the requirements would be and what credit you get from AP/DE. In her case courses that counted for her second major (e.g. MVC Math or AP Econ) would probably have been more use, but wouldn’t have been feasible at her HS. I think the surprise is just how many credits are needed for each major and the implications for her course load. The good thing is that we are realizing it now. If we’d waited another 6-9 months then catching up on the required sequence courses would have been extremely difficult.

At this point, DD is considering psychology as a double major, and possibly a nutrition minor. I’m going to sit down this week and map it out, to satisfy my own curiosity and need to research. Last spring I had looked at the suggested pre-PT courses and was really wondering how she’d manage it all while still meeting her BFA requirements and performing. Like @Twoin18 said, there’s not much point to being a BFA in ballet if you’re going to forego performance opportunities more often than not. DD is open to doing some summer courses and possibly a fifth year, but she may not feel that way 2-3 years down to road.

My D is BA dance major taking pre-PT prep courses. She originally was a dual degree student majoring in Dance and Exercise Physiology. She dropped her EP major to concentrate on just the courses needed to apply to DPT programs.

While you may come up with a way the courses might mathematically work what you can’t anticipate is when these courses will be scheduled. Most Dance programs have limited classes as their programs are not as large as say Biology programs. It can be difficult to get all of your courses scheduled when you need them. Dance courses require a lot of time rehearsing, setting up lighting, sets, costuming etc. My D doesn’t find them academically difficult but they require at least as much time as the studying for her more academic courses.

Pre PT at least is nearly like having a second major. Many of the courses such as Biology and some Chemistry must be taken at a college level to be accepted into the graduate programs (each DPT program is different). An advantage of only taking required courses is you won’t need a second set of General education courses like you would for a major. Each college (Fine Arts and Arts and Science) usually have different requirements and not all can be fulfilled with AP credits.

You can visit campuses and talk to the departments. I think you will find that a BFA and a second degree will be very difficult in 4 years. Good luck!

I wanted to bump this thread to get an update on whether on the double major planning from @mom2adancer and @Twoin18

If I’m not mistaken both of your children attend Utah and I spent some time looking at their requirements. On the plus side, if my daughter does successfully obtain her IB diploma, they grant 30 credits and waive all GE requirements except writing and math, which can be obtained from HL tests in those areas which she is planning on taking. With other AP courses, it looks like she may have as many as 45 credits going in. On the negative side, the BFA schedule is HEAVY and unfortunately she’s looking at probably a biology or engineering major and as a potential pre-med many recommend not relying on AP/IB courses for the premed requirements so she’s looking at heavy lab courses.

I really wish Utah offered a ballet minor as I think she wants more than the classes for non-majors, but does still want to pursue another academic major. I’d be interested if your children have any feedback on success stories they’ve heard from upper class-men about double majoring. I’m not opposed to paying for a 5th year, as it would still be significantly cheaper than a lot of the other schools on the list, but worry a bit about burn out.

@Darcy123 My D declared a second major (Environmental & Sustainability Studies) at the start of this semester. Its a fairly average (~60 credits) but doesn’t have any labs and has quite a few online courses and flexible electives that make it slightly easier to fit around ballet. Two or three courses will also double up with her remaining Gen Eds (Honors is more of a burden since you can’t use AP/IB credit to substitute for those). But she’ll still need to earn 150-160 credits in total (excluding AP credits). This semester she’s doing 19.5 credits (which is busy but tolerable) and she’ll do 2-3 more courses this summer (just staying for half of it), so by the end of freshman year she’ll have earned 42-45 credits (again excluding APs). So it does look reasonably feasible to complete in 4 years if she stays all three summers.

But taking a lab-based major would put a different complexion on things because there really aren’t many gaps in the ballet schedule for three hour labs. It would definitely be more plausible to complete in 5 years, but the required sequencing would still probably mean sitting out the performance auditions some semesters and lots of careful planning to figure which courses can be taken in the summer (for example a lot of the chemistry and math courses are offered in the summer but not so many biology and physics courses and no engineering at all, so you almost certainly shouldn’t pick engineering as the double major).

Even coming in with units it’s clearly more challenging to fit in labs and other big blocks of time around the required BFA schedule. DD is taking two summer school courses and has had online courses every semester so far. One of the summer courses will be online as well. That has at least allowed her some flexibility in taking more courses and fitting things in around dance. As I may have said earlier, having rehearsals on top of everything else is what can really eat up what little time they have. If your D isn’t performing and just wants to take rigorous ballet classes then at least she’ll have 3:30-6:30pm open every day. At this point mine’s leaning toward a minor but not a double major (which has changed just since last semester!). We’ll see how things evolve.

Edited to add that dance remains my D’s first love and priority, but we’re also looking at ways to graduate within four years. Being open to taking summer session courses helps, as it means she might not have to sacrifice performing.

Thanks for your feedback. I appreciate it. I didn’t realize online classes were an option, I’ll have to dig around the course catalog a bit more.

@Darcy123 A bit more of an update, as she’s been doing more planning. In course terms rather than credits, she’ll need 18 courses for her double major plus another 7 Honors courses (plus a thesis) and maybe one non-overlapping general ed. Out of those 25-26, she will have done 5 by the end of this semester plus another 3 this summer (just one half of it). So about 17-18 courses left to complete. That will mean 3 extra courses per semester (21-22 total credits) or 2 extra courses per semester (18-19 credits) if she stays for the whole summer one of the other two years. The latter seems more appealing and eminently doable.

Fortunately at least 10-12 of the courses in her double major are online so are easy to fit in around other things. If there were 3 courses that required in person attendance then it would be impossible to fit them around the ballet classes, even finding room for 1 often creates some limitations on what you can select.

@Twoin18 and @mom2adancer - my daughter is considering Utah. She was admitted to the Honors College and received her Honors LLC. The problem is the class associated with the Honors LLC is held one evening a week which would conflict with rehearsals. Just curious if either of your students had this issue. We both have called different departments, but no one has been very helpful. Any ideas? Secondary to the class conflict, we were also disappointed she was not placed at the Marriott Honors Dorm. She is at Sage Point. She’s worried about missing meals and having a small fridge in her room she will have to refill often. Any ideas? I have been very impressed with your hardworking students. Thanks.

@collegedd My D had an evening Honors class (6.30pm one evening a week). She didn’t end up with a conflict other than the first week when there were auditions. Only a few freshmen get selected for the performances so it’s not that likely to be a problem, and generally rehearsals for the main performances are at 3pm when studio classes finish, so clashes with an evening class are also infrequent.

Generally the rule is that when a compulsory Honors class clashes with a required class for your major, you do the major class and find a substitute Honors class at a time that doesn’t conflict. My D and several others in her LLC had to do that this semester. However, she hasn’t had to negotiate that issue with rehearsals, so I’m not sure if the same rule would definitely apply. That may be why you’ve not received a clear cut answer, because rehearsals are not necessarily seen as a compulsory class.

On the meal front, the dining hall food isn’t great. My D does a lot of meal transfers to use her meal plan at lunch (they stay down by the dance center because technique classes are over lunchtime) and then often eats out or at events (e.g. her sorority) in the evening if she doesn’t want to cook. She didn’t go to the dining hall more than a handful of times because it’s a long walk, though it would be more convenient for Sage Point compared to MHC.

Thank you so much for thoughts. We both really appreciate you taking the time to answer. It seems like she has to prioritize a few key items.

@collegedd congrats to your daughter! My D is in Sage Point, but not in honors. She is on a floor that is half honors and half fine arts. She eats breakfast at the HC and some dinners, but it really depends on her schedule. She has been in two productions so far and is in the gala next month, and there have been some weeks when rehearsals ran past 6:30pm and closer to 8-8:30pm. When she knows she’s going to be getting home that late she makes plans to have something to eat in her room. She shops at Smiths and/or Trader Joes most weekends to supplement her meal plan, but it’s mainly simple things like oatmeal or cream of wheat, bars, etc. And she would agree that she hasn’t really enjoyed the HC’s food options for the most part. She makes it work but is really looking forward to living off campus next year and having a kitchen.

@collegedd I would put the dance above everything else, since she will spend at least 5 hours a day doing that. The rest is nice to have, but just part of the overall environment, along with school spirit, whether she likes SLC, whether she wants to ski, etc.

In particular, while Honors is nice recognition, most of the “cool courses” and Praxis labs etc will clash with required dance classes so probably won’t be an option.

Thank you for the information. It helps to have others input that have been there.

Thank you so much for the information. I really appreciate it.

In speaking with admissions at several Universities, most if not all said that double majoring with a BFA is something that they really DO NOT recommend doing because there are so many scheduling conflicts. They suggested that if double majoring was our goal that we should look into a BA program, as they tend to have less of a performance commitment than that of a BFA program.

@NevrMynd51 I think this is very likely true at most universities. My D’s friend is at a program on the east coast where they’ve already told her that she will need to stay for a fifth year to complete a double major.

I think that as noted in post #10, the biggest difference is the number of online classes available to my D (and her willingness to carry a heavy course load: 23 units this semester). So for her it now seems feasible to complete the double major in 4 years (probably without needing to stay for another summer). Part of the rationale for keeping it to four years is that her scholarship covers 8 semesters. But I’m sure most people probably wouldn’t find the workload appealing.