Smith College

[golconda]

My dd is interested in Smith. Does anyone have any information about both the dance major and also what it is like to be a part of the Five College Dance Department? Thanks!

[tutu007]

golconda,

Over Christmas break this year, I visited the Five College Consortium. My ballet teacher actually majored in dance at Smith, and she has been rather successful. Smith, Mt. Holyoke, and UMass Amherst all have dance majors, but Amherst College does not, and I'm not sure about Hampshire. Dance classes can be taken at any one of the schools, but if you want to major in dance, it will always be from the school you are attending. Smith and the surrounding town are beautiful, so if you have the chance to go visit, it would be time well spent!!

 

There is a bus constantly running between the five colleges, so it isn't very difficult to get to any of the other schools to take classes, but the farthest schools from each other (I believe Mt. Holyoke to Smith) take about 20 minutes. Hope this helped!!

[amkuhl]

golconda,

Over Christmas break this year, I visited the Five College Consortium. My ballet teacher actually majored in dance at Smith, and she has been rather successful. Smith, Mt. Holyoke, and UMass Amherst all have dance majors, but Amherst College does not, and I'm not sure about Hampshire. Dance classes can be taken at any one of the schools, but if you want to major in dance, it will always be from the school you are attending. Smith and the surrounding town are beautiful, so if you have the chance to go visit, it would be time well spent!!

 

There is a bus constantly running between the five colleges, so it isn't very difficult to get to any of the other schools to take classes, but the farthest schools from each other (I believe Mt. Holyoke to Smith) take about 20 minutes. Hope this helped!!

 

 

Actually, you can major in dance specifically through the Consortium! You have to be accepted into one of the five schools, and then you audition for the dance major through the Consortium. You can earn your BFA, and they also have an MFA program. I just took my dd last week. Just a heads up, though, Amherst and Smith are very academically rigorous, Amherst being one of the hardest schools in the country to be accepted into...

[gogators]

Actually all five schools in the consortium are not a walk-in-the-park, academically. Tho' each school, including Smith, Amherst, Mt Holyoke and the rest have their own personality and campus culture/instructional philosophy, esp. Hampshire College. But all offer excellent academics, and I've heard nice things about the ballet classes offered thru Mt Holyoke.

[BigforkMom]

My oldest daughter graduated from Smith in 2009 with a dance major. She loved her time at Smith. Negatives she mentioned were that the faculty was small and greatly overworked. Also she found that being a dance major wasn't respected by the students with more academically "serious" majors. She got tired of the put-downs she would hear from people who didn't know her well that implied her program wasn't academically rigorous. In actuality, it was a very rigorous major, not just physically but intellectually. She did switch from ballet to modern while at Smith, which amused me because she wouldn't look at colleges that had strong modern programs in lieu of strong ballet programs. What she absolutely loved at Smith was the collaboration with graduate students in the MFA program.

 

BigforkMom