@SLparent they hold auditions for their Fall and Spring Show. The fall show is DancePace and the spring show is Dance Out Loud. The fall show auditions basically take place the first week that the semester starts in September. They bring in outside choreographers for the most part who hold their own audition and choose the dancers they want. Also the teachers, Rhonda, Lauren and Jess will usually have their own dances in the show that they hold auditions for. So, there may be one kid who is cast in four different numbers and another one may get nothing. There are no checks and balances to try to make it more fair. That’s my beef. It also annoyed me that at last year’s show they put in a dance that was a trio which I found completely ridiculous…especially when there were so many kids without parts at all. My daughter had one part in that show last year and it was the exact same piece that she was cast in the fall prior! Why not have a number with a lot of dancers in it instead to give more students performance opportunities? It makes no sense to me. My D has gotten some “B Cast” parts in the past which were originally not going to perform but then they added an afternoon show and she was able to perform but that only happened once. Another time she was an understudy and the girl she was shadowing could not perform so my D thought she would get the opportunity since she had been practicing for months and knew the choreography. Well…they ended up giving the part to the girl who was in the B Cast of that same dance instead so she ended up dancing the part in all the shows! Some nonsense about the costume which was complete BS. Thank God for Emergence, which is the student choreography show in December. She was in three dances for that show so at least we got to see her dance this year. That one is held at the studio though and is cast by the Seniors who are in the choreography track. It’s so sad when you’re used to seeing your kid dance at competition and recital and then they’re in college and you have no idea how they’re doing and get hardly any opportunities to see them perform. And yes, they do cast Freshmen. As the program grows, each year the Freshmen are better and better and are taking parts away from the upperclassmen.
As far as my daughter’s plans after college, I think she will get an agent and go on auditions. I know she would love to do a concert tour but as you know, she will have to take what she can get. Back in the 80’s when I was a student there it was mostly a commuter school popular with students from the 5 boroughs of NYC. It had a very strong reputation for business, finance, accounting, etc. The school is still exactly the same as when I went there but the demographic is so very different. There were no performing arts at all when I went there. I do think it’s a good school and they always had great connections for internships. There was an article that came out a few months ago that placed Pace #1 on the list of most underrated schools. As far as the Honors School I really don’t have any insight on that. Hope this helps.