My DD would like to attend a small to medium sized school with a strong academic focus and not major in dance but continue to dance at a high level in her free time. She likes all different styles of dance. What recommendations do you have for compiling a list of these types of schools? She is not interested in an all-women’s college; has a 4.0 unweighted gpa and a 4.8 weighted; interest in biology; strong extracurriculars; not sure of test scores…
I’m sure there are many good options…here are two…Duke and Cornell both offer strong dance class options and have nationally ranked dance teams as well.
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Are you looking for academic dance programs, or “dance companies,” which to me means student-run dance groups? Or a competitive dance team? Princeton has both a dance program and numerous student dance groups, including a student ballet company. It doesn’t have a dance team.
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Vassar has high level dance and no major. They did add a minor a couple of years ago. Bard is another with good dance opportunities.
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This is what D23 wanted, tip-top academic cohort, with options for dance and particularly performance (ballet with pointe available). You have to look at all schools carefully especially their club and dance teams or you will miss good options. If you want elites you have to apply broadly and of course be sure the academics line up as ballet is just an extracurricular and doesn’t help get anyone into an elite school with no dance major (other than showing as a long term intense dedicated EC which helps like all ECs of that intensity). Classes in dance vary greatly and sometimes the school doesnt have them listed as courses, but yet there are dance classes available 2-3x a week and if the kid is in one of the student-run companies (modern, contemporary/classical ballet are the common student-run company groupings), there are often extra “company” classes and rehearsals.
Look at instagram pages and websites of clubs, and ask on tours. See the studio spaces if possible (ie sprung marley floors are ideal).
For ballet in particular especially if one wants classical ballet with pointe: look into walkable or public transportation options to local professional companies who have adult classes or may have a relationship with the school and possibility for masters classes or group-adult class discounts for the college company members.
Schools on the broad list that met the academics and dance at a reasonable level (she only applied to 16 due to varying dance styles and academics —shifted toward Engineering mid-junior yr)
UPenn, Princeton, Yale, Duke, Uchicago, Harvard, Columbia, WashU, JHU, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Northwestern, Emory, Swarthmore, Davidson, Amherst, W&L, MIT, Brown, Smith, Vassar, UVA.
Got into 8 of the ones she applied to above, and picked Penn. She just finished spring performance season with classical pointe performance roles as well as more contemporary ballet pieces. Loves it, thriving academically too. Finding the best of both worlds worked out for a couple of her other high school pre-pro ballet friends who are at different schools above, and we know kids who decided to sacrifice the academics and went for more of the dance-major schools and are also happy.
Best of luck!
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It may not be selective enough for you but Miami University has it’s own dance company. It’s not affiliated with any dance major or minor.
Miami University is a selective state school in Ohio north of Cincinnati. It’s mid sized (about 14000 undergrads. It’s a beautiful campus and would be strong in her major.
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My son is at William and Mary and will minor in dance. They have an audition only modern dance company, Orchesis. Mine is a part of that and is really enjoying his involvement. He also dances in two student led groups where he performs hip hop, tap, contemporary, and jazz. There is opportunity to do student choreography for all groups if that is something of interest. WM has a brand new performing arts complex that just opened last fall. Beautiful spaces.
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Dance companies. She doesn’t want to study dance in college but still wants to dance a lot. Dance is her home, her safe place, where she finds her people and keeps physically and emotionally healthy. She has never done cheer or poms so doesn’t know whether she’d like a dance team. She is going to try a dance team camp this summer to figure that out. Thanks for all your ideas.
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Thank you everyone. This is very helpful.
She may want to look at the University of Cincinnati. It does not have name cache like the ones mentioned above, but it is a very strong school that has a well-known ballet/dance major.
My daughter majored in nursing but was able to take some dance classes (she was an advanced pointe student when she graduated from high school). She was never going to major or minor in it.
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Hi. I’m wondering if anyone has any recommendations in California for the type of school/environment my DD is seeking?
Stanford has a great student dance co. D23 did not have any interest in going that far away, so we never toured
@bearcatfan , they didn’t restrict pointe to BFA majors at UCinn? Or maybe she took dance classes for non-majors? My D25 wants to double major, but that’s at least partially bc most colleges seem to restrict higher level dance to majors only.
@2Devils, would you be willing to message me? (If not, no worries. I just can’t message you. I have a more detailed question about your daughter that you might not be comfortable answering publicly.)
Message sent!
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Sorry, I’m just seeing this (was driving a kid down south to a job).
My daughter had taken classical pointe for nearly 10 years. She took introduction to ballet as a fine arts elective, and the instructor recognized her background (not to toot her horn, just that she was definitely more advanced than others in the class). She offered to let her take the class en pointe, just so she wasn’t bored lol. She wanted her to continue, but with nursing that was not a good idea. She loved the class, though.
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