For T20 schools, how can you know how seriously they assess arts supplements and how much sway the relevant department (in this case dance) has on the admissions decision, if any? My student is choosing between several schools to ED/SCEA. In each case the dance department has expressed enthusiasm but in no case have they been clear whether that holds any meaning in the admissions process. Any BTDT advice?
Have you joined the Facebook group for “Dance Parents: College Bound”? If you post there you should get lots of answers (I’m in a similar group for acting/musical theater and the info for arts is more in depth in these groups than what you’ll get here). Arts supplements and auditions are a whole different world!
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It was far from clear to us whether the video supplement made much difference, or if they were instead looking primarily for high level recognition (eg national awards, dancing with famous companies). The latter were cited to us when we visited as examples of dancers attending.
While D18 focused mainly on the top ballet colleges (and succeeded in a number of auditions, she’s now a professional ballerina), she did put in an application to Princeton without any success (despite perfectly adequate academics, 4.0UW/35 ACT/9 APs with 8 5s).
There was a male dancer who got into Stanford in her year, again it was far from clear if the supplement had any impact or it was other things (attending a specialist arts school, writing a good essay and simply being rare as a male dancer) that made the difference.
I suspect female dancers are ten a penny at most T20 schools and standing out on a video is very hard (especially as it is much less structured than a formal audition video).
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I don’t know the answer to your question but I was recently at an admissions presentation at one of these schools and they indicated that those applications and portfolios were also read by department faculty. The same would be true of someone who submitted significant research in a certain field.
What seemed to us is that you first have to pass the academic admission. Then if you are qualified, the arts supplement can move your application to an acceptance, especially if they are looking for someone with that particular skill.
My son is dancing at William and Mary, and is a Business Analytics major. He applied with a dance supplement. Arts supplements are reviewed by faculty there in the relevant department. Did it help? Hard to know, but he is dancing with their company and doing well.
Our experience was not with dance but classical music…I don’t think you’ll ever know for sure to what extent the arts supplement helps, but having already had positive interactions with the department is a good sign. We could only really make good guesses about where his supplement was especially helpful in retrospect; at a few of his acceptances, music faculty reached out and introduced themselves and talked up the opportunities available. In one case, the orchestra director straight up told him, “I advocated for your admission.” But he had other acceptances where he never heard a word or even had trouble getting in touch with music people when he reached out; at those I would be surprised if his supplement was a factor in the decision (although his heavy involvement in music was still a strong EC, I’m sure). So, to sum up, I’m not sure there’s any way to tell in advance whether departmental faculty has sway with admissions…I think it’s more likely at schools that are known for having strong dance programs–they probably got that way because they go out of their way to admit strong dancers. But some of it’s going to be guesswork. If they’re talking to faculty, looking for schools that have strong dance departments, they’re probably on the right track.
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