katlynskrew

Visited Fordham/Alvin Alley last week. Fordham is located at Lincoln Center where the dancers would take there liberal arts classes, then travel about 5 blocks to the Alvin Alley studios. The studios are very nice and huge. We were told that 330 dancers applied last year for the program and 26 were selected. We did notice that the students from Fordham are incorperated in classes with students that are attending Alvin Alley in their own certificate program. Which made the classes seam really large, I'd say 30-35 dancers. Has anyone else visited Fordham or know anyone that has gone there?

treemaven

DD visited and considered this program two years ago, but choose somewhere else. One of her home studio classmates did go as a freshman dance major. Yes, the classes were quite large and are a mixture of the BFA students, adult students, and certificate program students. Any specific areas in which you have questions?

katlynskrew

Thanks Treemaven,

As colleges are concerned for dance are the classes typically large like that or in general are they smaller. Or could it be that the lower levels have larger classes but as you advance the class sizes decrease

treemaven

Hmmm, I don't really know the answer to that question. I would say that to DD and me, the size of the classes seemed quite large---and we did not know which classes were freshmen classes and which were upperclassmen. I'm a bit fuzzy since our visit was two years ago, but as I recall the classes are not set up by year of school (i.e., not 'all freshmen', 'all sophomore', etc), but rather by deemed ability level. Freshmen typically were tracked into specific levels, but occasionally a freshman would be placed in a higher level.

So, you probably need to find someone much more knowledgeable about the school than I to answer that particular question about class size through out the four year period.

I would also suggest simply asking the Admissions folks. The AD and the admissions staff person we spoke to were very gracious and very frank in answering our questions. For instance, it is very difficult for dance majors to double major (due to time constraints of dance classes versus academic offerings), pointe classes are few and far between and typically not available to freshmen, dance majors cannot participate in the Honors Academic program (again issue of time constraints), and underclassmen are not permitted to participate in outside performance opportunities.

But the Seniors have a performing company that actually gets paid! So that's very cool!!

keepingcalm

I was also a little confused if this question was directed specifically at the Ailey/Fordham program or more general about college dance programs. I will add the littel I know from DD's experience at Ailey summer session and consideration of the Fordham/Ailey program.
In the summers, the class schedules are set based on their permenant dance schedule, so there are no specific classes for the summer intensives. DD understood this to be the same during the academic year. These are open classes that can be taken by Fordham/Ailey students, Ailey II company members, students in the certficate program, and others "off the street." You audition for each class type - Ballet, Horton, and Graham, then other classes were available based on your placement level - pointe reuiqred ballet 3 and up; jazz required ballet 3 and at least one form of modern at 2.
In the summer DD was in ballet 4 (or what ever the second highest level was) and this was her biggest class. She said it ranged from 35 to almost 50 and had a lot of Ailey 2 dancers that dropped in, and the most off-the-street dancers. She was in Horton 3 (of 4)which had a pretty consistent about 20 people and Graham 1, which was big but not a lot of drop ins.
She said the higher levels of the modern, both Graham and Horton had about 20 students, lower levels were bigger. Ballet 4 she thought was probably the largest classes, but the lower levels still had 35 to 40 people in them She opted not to take pointe and did jazz instead.
At first DD was alarmed at the size of the classes, particularly for the price, but over time learned to work well in them and gained alot. SHe has decidied not to audition for the college program because she doesn't want to go to Fordham, for no real reasons. Fordham students did have separate Rep and perfomance times other than classes