<p>I am a rising high school senior from Massachusetts who is completing my last two years of high school by taking a full college course load at Harvard Universitys Extension School. I am a ballet dancer and dance professionally with a company in Boston. I am also a competitive figure skater and compete at fairly advanced levels in individual free-style and ice dancing. </p>
<p>My first year of high school was completed at a very competitive public high school where I took the maximum number of honor courses and received all As. In my second year I attended a well-respected arts conservatory (for ballet) with a very good college preparatory program and again received all As.</p>
<p>This last year at Harvard I completed a program that included Calculus A and B; a 300-level World History class; Expository Writing; a 300-level Conversational Spanish course; Bio-chemistry and Earth Science courses and a course in the English novel. My unweighted GPA is 3.75. </p>
<p>In addition to my ballet and skating, I have participated actively in a Model UN program for home-schooled students. In August I will travel to lecture at several Model UN programs in Puebla, Mexico. I also tutor 4 high school students in Spanish and participate regularly in 3 volunteer community groups.</p>
<p>This summer I have a paid internship as a research assistant in a highly respected molecular biology laboratory at Tufts NE Medical School, a position I held last summer as well. </p>
<p>My SAT score (first time) was 2100+ (700s across the board). I took the biology SAT II freshman year and received a 710. Recently I received at 760 on Spanish Sat II and a 690 in Math2. </p>
<p>I am beginning to look at colleges for the fall of 2008. I intend to enter as a freshman. There are few things important to me in a college The school should have excellent biology and language programs. It should also present me the opportunity to partcipate in either dance (ballet) or figure skating. A cohesive school spirit would be great. The only school I've looked at to date has been Dartmouth, which has a great skating program and an interesing and flexible curriculum (the D-Plan). I am interested in both LACs and universities in the northeast and west coast.</p>
<p>I would like your feedback on the attractiveness (or not) of my application at Williams with suggestions as to whether or not this a fit for me academically and extra-curricularly.</p>
<p>I think many schools would be happy to have you. Your accomplishments are very impressive, I Think the academics and life style at Williams would be a good fit, but I don't know about skating or dance.</p>
<p>I think I remember suggesting Barnard to you on another thread because of its dance department.</p>
<p>After a thorough search of schools (including Brown & Dartmouth) my son found Williams to be the warmest environment.</p>
<p>Good luck! Whatever you decide, I'm sure you'll have a great outcome.</p>
<p>Thanks again for your kindness and for your earlier recommendation on Barnard which remains at the top of my list with Vassar. Stanford also has dance program (more modern than ballet) and a figure skating team. Williams appears to treat dance (ballet and otherwise) as a part of physical education. They have a new facility which looks fantastic. Irrespective of where I go, ballet will be sidelight to my academics, something I will do extra-curricularly or a minor.</p>
<p>BalletGirl, You are an unusual case! I agree with Mythmom that many colleges would find your background extremely interesting.</p>
<p>My son has a friend who danced at Williams and found ample opportunities for performance. The new performing arts theater *is *extraordinary. </p>
<p>I don't know much about their figure skating except that it's a club sport and it's certainly cold enough. :)</p>
<p>My guess is that if you like the atmosphere at Dartmouth you will like Williams as well. It certainly seems to have everything on your acdemic wish list.</p>
<p>The other school that comes to mind is Smith if you would consider an all women's environment.</p>
<p>Although not an academic department / major, the dance program at Williams is stellar and has been a big point of emphasis in recent years. Check the commencement honorary degree and speaker line-up for 2006:</p>
<p>In terms of your chances, always a crapshoot in today's admissions environment, but I think you'd stand a very good chance, particularly with your unusual (and I imagine for Williams, highly desirable) extracurriculars.</p>
<p>In terms of your other criteria, Biology is top-notch at Williams. The school definitely has a cohesive school spirit, far more so than many of its peers. Languages, however, are not a traditional area of strength, not horrible, but not the top departments at Williams either. Figure skating is a club sport at Williams, but I don't know anything about it. Here is some info:</p>
<p>Princeton has been looking for dancers over the past few years. </p>
<p>Williams has been beefing up its dance programs to go along with the great new facility they have. Dance being athletic, you might feel particularly comfortable on a campus with such a strong female and male athletic tradition, particularly as that is coupled with a very strong theater tradition and a very strong visual arts tradition (both of which go hand-in-hand with dance, in my mind). Jacobs Pillow, which offers summer dance performances in the Berkshires, might be another wonderful resource for you. I'd go talk with the dance, theater, biology, and language departments if I were you.</p>
<p>Biology is great at Williams, but the language departments are not as strong as other departments. On the other hand, there is a lot of flexibilty, including programs abroad, winter study, and the summer arts programs, so there would be much at the college for you and opportunities to take advantage of things that were going on elsewhere.</p>
<p>My impression of dance here is that the program hasn't caught up with the new facilities. Dance is only offered as PE, so (unlike theatre or music) you can't major in dance or take any for-credit classes in dance, and I don't know how good the performing groups are. You should definitely visit and talk to the teachers, though, if you want to find out more.</p>
<p>I've never heard anything about figure skating at Williams. We have an ice rink, so I'm sure it happens, but it doesn't seem like a big thing.</p>
<p>I don't know much about dance or figure skating at Williams or anywhere else for that matter, but I checked the NCAA web site and it appears that they do not sponsor figure skating programs at any college. So you're looking at a club program wherever you go to school.</p>
<p>I figured that I would take a look at the University of Michigan since I have a relative who just graduated after majoring in dance there and saw that their skating program is part of U.S. Figure Skating. Perhaps there are other sponsoring organizations out there, but the following site gives a list of the USFS programs.</p>