Scholarships for Boys

[Danza2]

Thanks for your feedback everyone. I figured parents of boy dancers would be the best place to inquire about scholarships for boys. I've been told they were out there. I just didn't know how common full scholarships were. Sounds lke they are less common than what I had been told from a mother of dance daughters.

 

I am extremely grateful for everything our dance school does to keep our tutition as feesible as possible for us. They are very accomodating with monthly payment plans, rather than paying bi-annually or quarterly, and my daughter and son (in particular) have receved their fair share of merit scholarships, boy's schoalrships, and sibling discounts.

 

I'm sure as many of you dance parents know, by the time our dancers reach the advanced pre-pro levels, it's next to impossible for them to take on a part time job while dancing and in high school. He is more than willing to help out in any capacity around the studio and at home? (well, with some attitude).

[CeliB]

It may be different in the UK but in my experience there is very little in the way of financial assistance at non vocational dance schools. It's considered that anyone who is really serious about a ballet career will be applying to vocational school and that's where all the scholarships are concentrated.

DS does have a 100% scholarship at a US vocational school but I don't know how common these are. I know his teacher in the UK sent quite a number of talented girls to this school when she taught in Korea (she says they have all subsequently achieved principal dancer level) but DS is the only one of her students ever to have been offered a 100% scholarship by the school so perhaps this reflects the boy/girl difference in scholarship availability....

[Danza2]

Thanks for your reply CeliB. We are considering having my son begin the audition process this year for "vocational" dance schools or company trainee programs. Can you please describe a vocational dance school? Is this where they study both academics and dance at the same school? Many also have a dance program with on line studies to complete their high school education while dancing.I would appreciate feed back on this topic even if we need to move on to a new subject title for this conversation.

[CeliB]

yes, sorry, maybe different terminology in UK to USA! By vocational yes I mean a school that is full time and which integrates academics as well as dance. This allows them to do in the region of 4 plus hours a day dance (generally 6 days a week) as well as some evening classes and regular performance opportunities. Mostly this is by having in-house academics but for some I think they may have arrangements with a local high school or people may be home schooled (I think Harid used to do this but now have in-house academics). I think maybe in US you call it pre-pro.

There is a section on this forum for these schools with a thread for each one where you can get lots of info as well as advice from people already at the school in question. There are also lots of threads on this forum which touch on the fact that talented boys are more likely to get scholarships to these kinds of programmes compared with girls - of course it's hard to know the truth of it as we each only have the experience of our own child to judge, and I for one have absolutely no idea how talented DS is compared with other boys OR girls (he is the first dancer in the family)

Hope this helps!.

[Danza2]

Thanks CeliB. I have one of each. A ballet son and a ballet daughter. While both my dancers were recognized and received a scholarship award based on merit, it's my son who receives 50% scholarship for his year round training. They're both equally committed, even though my daughter was way more committed at younger age than my son. Their school is considered a pre professional school, although it is not a vocational (academic and dance) school. The level of training and dance schedule is comparable to the world renown dance school and company near by.I'll look into the vocational schools and dance schools on the forum. thanks for reminding me it was there.

[CeliB]

yes sorry then pre pro isn't quite right either. In that case I have no idea what the USA term is

 

DSs previous teacher has gone to teach at City Ballet School which gets a lot of their students into the San Fran Ballet but only does classes outside normal school times, and I was surprised to find out the hours of dance on offer were as high as in a vocational school. It is pretty rare in the UK- one of the reasons that places at the few vocational ballet schools are so highly contested (not that we ever had that as an option as DS refused to learn english style, sigh....)

 

The disadvantage of non vocational I guess is that the working day is so much longer- I think in the vocational schools the academics are curtailed to the bare minimum - DS for example does a 7am to 4.30 pm day of which half is ballet and half academics (though never having experienced the US academic system I have no idea how it compared- in UK standard school hours are 8.30-3.30). Now he's 16 he also has some kind of partnering or rehearsal class most evenings but he didn't at 14. I am full of admiration for DKs who manage a schedule of 4 hours dance in the evening after school- I know DS wouldn't have (he barely scraped through his first year of academics as he found it so tough- having come from a normal academic school and only 3-4 hours of ballet a week!). And of course he doesn't have to travel from one to the other (or from home, as he boards on site)

 

Good luck with it all...