help us find strong communications/arts schools?

curiouser
Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:29:56 +0000

My D was a pre-professional ballet dancer and an excellent student who also wanted to major outside of dance. As much as she loved NYU, she ended up not applying after learning she would be unable to take dance at the level she was used to unless she was majoring in it. Back 4 years ago, their dance department did not encourage the double major option. Implications were that you might have limited performing opportunities, and other disadvantages if you weren’t seen as a “regular major”.

It may be different now–we’ve heard of things that have changed a bit at several schools she initially considered just since 4 years ago. Ultimately, she decided she wanted a program that allowed a double major (and was DO-ABLE) or a dance minor where she could also still perform.

Four years ago, Indiana University was a school that did indicate it was common for dancers to have another major (“Area of Outside Interest” they called it). I believe some of their policies regarding non-majors taking more classes, having a minor, etc may have changed since then.

However, it is true that it is brutally difficult to be accepted into the ballet program at IU. The year my D was in the hunt, they only took 10 new freshmen out of hundreds who auditioned because that was all the space they had…in the past they kept the number of dance majors quite small considering the size of the university.

It’s very important to look beyond the websites and contact the schools directly and ask all your questions. Knowing what I know now, I would have suggested she email/phone at least a couple people at each school. We also experienced differing answers, although well-intentioned, at the places where we did inquire.

Since some of these “rules” can make the difference between dancing at the level you want, or not, it’s important to really understand the vagaries of the programs.