How can my aspiring dancer make best use of spring and summer, junior year?

<p>My DD is a junior in a performing arts school and hopes to apply to college dance programs in the fall. She has been doing ballet since she was 4, mostly with a rigorous studio, but has lately grown weary of the restrictive environment (and frankly, the "drama") in her old studio. This year she has experimented with classes in jazz and modern, which she loves and may want to pursue in college. However, I've also read that summer intensives, especially in ballet, seem to rank high in admissions decisions. My daughter has a 3.4 UW GPA - not great, but ok - but her dancing and acting skills are superb. She's looking at Loyola Marymount, U of Arizona, Indiana U, Cal State Long Beach, possibly UC Irvine (though I think it's academically out of reach). Should she focus on summer ballet sessions - again - at her studio; or should she be auditioning for higher level intensives; or can she afford to just take a mix of classes all summer, as she did last summer while holding down a nice job? And should she focus mainly on ballet till she gets into college, or is the smorgasbord approach ok to prepare for next year?</p>

<p>Which program is she applying to at Indiana. If the Ballet Department, I would say definitely a ballet intensive or a heavy focus on ballet at home. The others are not quite so specifically ballet focused, so a mix of styles might work well. When my daughter auditioned, I didn’t get the impression that the summer programs she had done (all selective ballet SIs) we’re considered at all, it was the level of her training. The audition is really where the decision is made, assuming the grades are acceptable to the institution, was the impression we were given.</p>

<p>Those are really competitive schools to get into. I would get her into a ballet intensive because all of those schools are ballet based. I would start looking now because they are in the middle of auditions already and you dont want to miss the audition season. Good Luck.</p>

<p>She could apply for a summer program to the colleges she is is interested in, if
they have one. That way, she would get valuable intensive training and get a glimpse of what that program is like, what the campus is like, housing, etc.</p>

<p>Two more to look at would be UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Fullerton. They have the Limon West coast summer intensive there, and one of the Fullerton teachers teaches at the intensive. For UCI and possibly Santa Barbara, as long as your D meets the minimum UC requirements, her audition can get her accepted. We see it all the time. If she loves contemporary ballet, how about Dominican U/Lines program? Cal Arts?</p>

<p>For summer, the intensive at Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts is excellent.</p>

<p>Does she want to get a BFA in ballet and maybe dance professionally after college, or does she want to pursue an academic degree in something dance related, like physical therapy or teaching dance? If she’s not totally into ballet, she can still take dance in college, but have other interests as well. There’s more than one road to take.</p>