@bouders
Thanks for pointing that out. I probably made it sound as though there is no cross training at WH, which I didn’t mean to. Even strictly ballet dancers usually take some classes in other genres.
But knowing the ballet level that is required by the admissions process now that Boston ballet has taken over the program (so after 2020), I feel very confident in saying that unless someone is a very well-trained ballet dancer, they will not likely get into Walnut Hill. (There is only ballet in the pre-screen video requested for 2021, for example.) And while students aren’t required to be on the true pre-pro (non-college) path, they probably need to be (close to) good enough for the company path to be a reasonable option. I say this as an outsider though, as a ballerina mom myself and of a few friends whose pre-pro girls were not offered admission there but are routinely offered spots at other amazing ballet spots like PNB, ABT, etc… So if they aren’t getting in, it does lead me to believe that it would be unlikely that a recreational dancer would be offered admission post-2020. (I’ll add that on the flip side, we have friend whose daughter was already a student in 2019, and she was indeed a serious but recreational dancer, and she feels very lucky to be there now getting BB great training since she knows that she would not likely be newly admitted if she were to have applied this year.) Maybe that will change going forward – but for this past admissions cycle, it frankly feel like a bit of a mashup of a PA high school + pre-pro ballet program (just based on zooms and phone calls I’ve experienced).