<p>Is ballet the worst paid profession? Yikes-a-rama! I have one actor and one ballerina. Who is going to help out with the bills from the assisted living facility, for my husband and me? Seriously, dance is even higher stakes as a career choice, I think, than acting. One injury and you’re out, as they say on Project Runway.</p>
<p>In the interest of full disclosure, my 86-year-old ballerina friend is to this day among the happiest, sharpest and most vivacious women I have ever had the pleasure to know, so it would not be fair to say that her poverty has ruined her life. </p>
<p>She still knows how to get a man to buy her a meal – or a trip to Paris for that matter – but I’m not sure that’s a skill I want my D to perfect… gap year or no! ;-)</p>
<p>^^^^^
“If the student doesn’t have a performing JOB, the student should be getting some great training.” He particularly noted the need for boys to take summer dance intensives"</p>
<p>I think was it meant by that statement is in many intense BFA programs you start auditioning for placement on day one. And if you are not at your peak, you may find yourself in a beginner or intermediate class when you could be in and advanced class.</p>
<p>^^^^
Lots of good points about BFA being no picnic as many of us who have had kids go through programs are amazed at there schedules and how long their days are.</p>
<p>^^^^
Gap. I don’t see that as a good thing unless an opportunity to perform comes along. This would be something to consider only after completing freshman year. Not knowing all the details, I am concerned about the need for someone to take a gap year after high school and before college due to stress. It almost sounds like there is another underlying problem. </p>
<p>Many kids drop out after their freshman year after they find out that they thought they loved theater but not 18 hours a day.</p>
<p>As a senior right now, I’d say wait before making a set decision. Your D may change her mind when acceptances roll in-I know I did! I’m exhausted, but I can’t wait to get to my top-choice school in the fall. So just give it time.</p>
<p>snapdragonfly, I was thinking about your daughter’s situation and went back to re-read your original post. From it, one of the things that struck me is what can be done NOW to alleviate your daughter’s stress and burn out. How many auditions does she have left and when will they be over? Are the schools to which she is applying very selective academically and have her mid year grades been submitted to those schools that require them? i ask because so often, high school teachers are oblivious to the stresses that audition program applicants are dealing with on top of the normal high school curriculum and think that once applications are in, the college application process is over. In addition, There is a real tendency for MT bound students who are also committed academic students to totally overload their plate. </p>
<p>Is it possible for you and she to analyze what she really still needs out of her high school process to meet the needs of her college admissions, taking into account and prioritizing things like how important top flight grades are for the rest of the high school year (not saying she should become a slacker, but if she is “driven” to get that “A”, does she really need to have the pedal pressed to the floor at this point), the role and importance of those DC credits you spoke about and what is needed to secure them, how important is that overbearing drama teacher at this point in the process, in other words, identify all of the stressors as best you can and then determine which ones are really important now and which are not. Would that help your daughter prioritize where to spend her time and energy and give her the opportunity to cut back on those things that while once so important as she built her high school resume are not so important now?. </p>
<p>Taking care of her physical and emotional health is so much more important than anything that is going on in high school over the next 3 months. One of the things we did (we were such “bad” parents) was to support our daughter taking “mental health days” during the last three months of high school anytime she felt she really needed one. We encouraged her to cut back on extracurricular activities that were not core to her desire to perform and even there, the decision regarding various performance related activities was subject to evaluation (she decided not to perform with her school’s select choir in an audition based competition in New York despite a lot of pressure at school because she and her doc said she had vocal fatigue and in the scheme of her future life, taking care of voice and preventing injury was more important than a high school choir competition). So often, the image of second semester high school seniors being on “cruise control” is so off base, particularly for performing arts kids that it is really a good thing to find that cruise control button where you can.</p>
<p>As to the summer, if your daughter wants to do anything other than MT or performing, I would support that. As dedicated as these kids are, they need to have lives outside of performing and after 4 years of intense involvement culminating in the stress of college auditions, taking a break before diving back in - whether it be college or training during a gap year - can be a good thing. My daughter took a break from performing the summer after her senior year of high school, taking only about half a dozen voice lessons during the summer break just to keep her voice exercised. She spent a lot of time playing, sleeping, being with friends and just being a kid. After 4 years of an insanely packed life, it was a much needed and well deserved break. She emerged from the summer recharged and ready to move forward.</p>
<p>Thank you all for such thoughtful responses. I’m going to reread them in case I missed anything.</p>
<p>Michael, that is pretty much what I decided to do. Her drama teacher did connive to get her into all of the competitions even after we had discussed that she did not need to to them. So, she’s in them now and really can’t back out - but - I told her she didn’t have to stress about them. Show up for practice, do the best she was up to and then forget about it when she’s not there and just ignore all the malarkey her teacher puts on her.</p>
<p>We also discussed the grades. You are right, it’s not necessary she kill herself for all A’s this semester. Those DC credits will be really good for her to have but all she has to get is a C in order for the college to accept it as credit, and the grade itself won’t be counted in her gpa at college. And the scholarships will all have been given out and over with long before the 8th semester final grades are in. As long as she doesn’t utterly flunk, I’m sure they won’t rescind anything. I really think if she has mostly A’s and a couple high B’s, that even if she gets a C in economics, it will not matter much. So I said, try to get a B but if you end up with a C don’t worry. (she DOES need to get that C or she may have summer school which would not be good. But I think she’ll pull that off.)</p>
<p>~the sad part is we had a wonderful economics teacher that everyone loved but he died of a heart attack last year. : ( </p>
<p>And as much as possible I’m letting her take those mental health breaks. I think you hit the nail on the head with that girl. It’s been relentless for months now - there hasn’t been a weekend that wasn’t either an ACT, or a school contest, or an audition, for ages. Today, there isn’t any thing going on at all and she’s so happy that she can get together with her friends until she’s ready to come home, rather than cut it short to be at something. She’s very much an extrovert and if she isn’t spending enough time with her buddies, her batteries don’t get recharged.</p>
<p>And it’s true that her teachers are mostly clueless about what she is trying to do and what it takes. No sympathy at all. And her drama teacher seems to think she should have gotten ALL of her essays done last summer - including the ones that the colleges don’t tell her she needed to do until after she was accepted and then qualified to apply for extra scholarships, things like that. (this is the woman who thinks dance classes were a waste of time, and doesn’t seem to understand the difference between getting into a junior college and a capped BFA - so you see what she’s had to deal with)</p>
<p>She only has a few auditions left and those are for money. (the money part is important though because they are all at private schools.) So she doesn’t need to stress about those; they really ought to be a piece of cake, by now, as she knows her material so well.</p>
<p>As for how hard a BFA will be for her to handle - I think she’ll handle it as well as the average kid at least. She does have those DC hours which will give her a lot of breathing room. This is why she did them - so she’d have Spanish and Algebra behind her already and not have to deal with them during her freshman year. Because they’d be just as hard in college, but she’d also most likely have her scholarship and thus her college career (lose scholarship, come home) on the line too and that would be far far worse. I think she needs to remember that because I know she will be so so glad when this is all in the past and she’s reaping the rewards.</p>
<p>I think judging from all this, we probably should reckon it up to “all working out as it’s supposed to” if she doesn’t get into any of the extremely high pressure programs. I know the high pressure really competitive schools have excellent training, but if she learns best in a somewhat less stressful environment, that’s where she needs to go. I realize and so does she that the real world will be brutal and even vicious but we are of the theory that the purpose of college is for her to get her training and confidence built up; not to make sure she gets a really good taste of how vicious the vicious parts are. Some are of the theory they might as well “get used to competition” from day one in college, but I think even the less fast paced programs are going to have plenty of competition and work and stress; I think any well regarded BFA program is going to be plenty enough work and competition for her. She’s 18, she doesn’t need to be mature enough to deal with the real world right now. She can do that in 5 years. If she were ready for that now she could just hop a bus to Broadway and dispense with college. ~this is how WE see it; this may not hold true for every kid and just because it’s our view doesn’t mean the opposite view isn’t just as valid, but for her, I am very sure of this.</p>
<p>If she does end up with a really rigorous program (and that would include academics - there is a range of that in her school list too) that might be an argument to maybe consider the gap, so she’ll be recovered. If she ends up at some of the schools on her list which are less selective (but still good) academically, I think she might not need to, if she can ease off this spring and have a fun and relaxing summer.</p>
<p>She does not need to decide any of this now.</p>
<p>She’s already feeling better this weekend than she did last weekend - we backed out of a couple things and while she’s not one hundred percent she’s a lot better. She had a meltdown earlier in the week and she NEVER does that - she’s an extremely grounded, well balanced, happy little person most of the time, who works hard and cares about outcome but knows when it’s time to let things go. It’s so unusual for her to not be handling things well. But this fall and winter have just kind of been piling up on her and she hasn’t had time to recoup yet.</p>
<p>We are just going to “cruise” this spring and see how she feels later. Thank you all for the input and support and for any future remarks too, as this process continues. Also I’m sending mellow vibes to your kids if they are feeling the same way - I haven’t replied to my PM’S yet but apparently my child is not the only little human to be feeling the stress! Nor am I the only parent to feel it either! It’s good to know we aren’t alone!</p>
<p>I know there are many thoughtful responses on this thread and unfortunately I don’t have time to respond to them all, but I just wanted to say that I also had a breif moment where I thought about taking a gap year. I feel like hesitation and concern are part of anyone who is about to embark on the journal into adulthood that college offers, whether that person is auditioning for a BFA or not. That is not to say that you shouldn’t take her statements seriously, but I think for the most part being unsure of what you want to do is a normal thing, and mentioning a gap year isn’t the worst thing your D could say. </p>
<p>I moved past it in about a week (my fears were more about leaving home that not getting into the “right” program) and am very happy now. I know many people who concidered gap years and are now more than happy at the college they chose. I know people who took gap years and are more than happy that they did so. All I want to say is that it is NORMAL for her to feel this way and I hope that everything works out. :)</p>
<p>Thanks for that perspective, Alexa. I think it is probably very normal to at least consider it.</p>
<p>I’m in the same position as your daughter. I thought senior year was going to be less stressful than junior year was, but this year has been much busier. My mom really wants me to take some time to relax, but as a senior, I’m not willing to miss out on the last of my high school activities. I’m exhausted and burnt out from ten auditions, and I still have three more. With rehearsals for a school show and working in retail mixed in with everything, I definitely feel like I would want a gap year. After thinking about it, though, I think this is just a temporary exhaustion and by the end of the year, I’ll be eager to go away to school like the rest of my friends. </p>
<p>It’s definitely not unusual that your daughter wants to take a gap year. Maybe once audition season is over with she’ll feel some of the pressure lessen. Does she have a winter break from school at all? My school has off next week and I think that will give me some time to catch up on sleep and relax for a bit, rather than waiting until spring break.</p>