We get asked all the time about when dancers should leave home for residential ballet programs and we always hesitate to give people advice on this. It’s not really our call. We don’t know each individual dancer’s situation and we’d be remiss to assume we know best on this. In a future series, we’ll be discussing the questions to ask in considering a residential ballet school.

But, what we can tell you is that there is a huge difference in levels within each school and it’s in your best interest to understand how different parts of each residential ballet school function. There are usually multiple levels within each school. In some levels, students can simply register and attend classes. In other levels, kids must do some sort of audition or screening class prior to admission. 

The “intermediate” and advanced levels of a school invariably require an audition and competition for spots can be fierce. This post will cover, in general, each level of a school and how they differ from one another. We’ll also point out some false assumptions people sometimes make and how to avoid them.

Pre-Ballet and Creative Movement

The lowest levels of a school are often designed for young children. Classes may include pre-ballet, creative movement, etc. Not all company affiliated schools or conservatories offer classes at this level. However, if a school does offer this level, it likely does not require an audition and it’s almost always made up of kids from the surrounding area. In these cases the school functions as one’s “neighborhood” ballet program.

The schools have no illusions that their next principal dancer will be spotted in these classes (although you never know!). Rather, this is an excellent source of revenue for the school. Tuition from these classes sometimes supports aid in two areas – tuition for kids who can’t afford to take ballet class without financial assistance and scholarships for older, talented students.

Is it worth it to send your five-year old to a company affiliated ballet school? Sure, if you live close by. But, I certainly wouldn’t do it unless it was near my house and offered lower tuition compared to something I could find elsewhere.

The “Children’s” Division

Once kids get a bit older, often around six or seven years old, there is another division within the school that they may enter. Again, different schools call this division by different names. However, most require an audition or some sort of screening. Even at this age, admission to some schools can be quite competitive. Take The School of American Ballet (SAB) as an example. The New York metro area is huge and, as a result, there are loads of kids who are interested in attending SAB, even in the lower levels. And, not everyone gets in. Now, does it really matter if your nine-year old doesn’t get into SAB. It does not. It is nearly impossible to predict future success at nine.

For other schools, admission may be perfunctory. Once they attend the audition, they get in. It just depends on demand. Schools need to fill their classes, so if a school is in a smaller city, admission may be less competitive.

Some schools remain largely made up of local kids through the intermediate levels. For example, San Francisco Ballet School is comprised almost entirely of local kids through level 6, which is the top level of the intermediate program. And, Pacific Northwest Ballet offers classes to local students through age 18. Their “professional training program” doesn’t even allow students under 18.

However, this middle division at most schools is when performance opportunities with the main company often arise. The biggest draw, of course, is the opportunity to be in a company’s Nutcracker. There is usually an age cut-off for Nutcracker so it’s important to know where that cut-off is. It’s usually somewhere around age 8 to 10 depending on the school. It’s also important to understand how much your dancer may get to do in the Nutcracker. It varies widely, from company to company, in terms of how many kids are on stage and how much they actually dance. 

Doing the Nutcracker with a company affiliated school can be a big undertaking and it will definitely alter your Thanksgiving and Christmas plans. So, be sure to think about how something like this may fit into your family situation. 

There are also opportunities for kids at this age to be cast in children’s parts in other ballets the company might be doing that season. This past year, we watched kids who are 10, 11 and even a bit older get a lot of stage time in Romeo and Juliet and even a world premiere that San Francisco Ballet did.

When it comes to actual ballet instruction, there is no guarantee that the teaching will be significantly better than your child may get at their local ballet school. And, when they’re eight or nine, the differences may not matter. But, the opportunity to get on stage, even in children’s parts, may be worth it to take a look at a company affiliated program if you live in the surrounding area.

The Upper Or Advanced Levels

When you hear about company affiliated programs, it is the upper level that most people are talking about. This is when you start seeing kids coming in from out of town and this is also when you see housing become available for students. Please note, it’s different depending on the school. 

At a place like SAB, housing becomes available for students 14. At the Rock, it’s younger, but most kids currently attending who live in the dorms are 15 and older. Of course there are always exceptions, but the general trend is that this level attracts dancers who are ages 15 to about 18.

This is also where most programs switch from being an after-school program to being a full-day program, resulting in the need to enroll your student in some sort of non-traditional academic program. More on this in a future blog post, but the switch from an after-school program to a full-day program guarantees that your student is no longer attending a traditional day at a brick and mortar school.

At this point, for all company affiliated schools and conservatories, competition for spots can be intense. The classes at these levels are made up almost entirely of students who have indicated a keen interest in dancing professionally and have demonstrated that they have the potential to do so.

And, the composition of the classes at this level differs significantly. Students typically come from all over the country, if not the world, to train in these places. It’s no longer the kids from your local carpool. And, most importantly, you probably won’t see many kids in that level who came up through the lower levels of the school. More on that in a bit.

Tenure Doesn’t Determine Casting And Promotions

I can’t tell you how many times I heard that students got unfairly “passed over” for things despite having been at the school for years. I have some news for you. Tenure in ballet schools does not give your dancer a leg up.

The first year my son did the Nutcracker at San Francisco Ballet School, there were four girls chosen to be Clara. Do you know how many of those four made it all the way through the school and completed the top level (level 8)? One. Two left after level 6 and are now attending college and one left after level 7. Just because you were Clara in the Nutcracker does not guarantee you anything in the future.

Also, just because you’ve been at the school forever, doesn’t mean you have a clear path into the upper level, much less the company. You will often hear complaints that a school “doesn’t invest in its local talent.” What this complaint really means is that “My kid has been there since level 1 and got cut after the intermediate level.” That doesn’t mean the school didn’t invest in the local talent. They just had a bunch of kids who waited to audition until they were eligible for the upper levels and then got admitted.

This can be a bit of a blow to local families who have had students at a company affiliated school from a really young age. Unfortunately the reality of most schools like these is that the lower levels function as a source of revenue for the school and as a feeder to the company for (sometimes unpaid) children’s parts. They also serve as a pipeline for new audience members. How many of us have had our young kids perform in a Nutcracker and half the neighborhood came to watch? That’s a huge revenue stream for the company, where often nearly 50% of a company’s season revenue comes from Nutcracker ticket sales!

In addition, coming to a school at a young age does not give your dancer any sort of leg up in the competition for slots in the upper levels. In fact, in some schools, there is a perception that it can work against a dancer. Why? In some company affiliated schools, the classes can move quite slowly. Kids who come into a school in the higher levels are sometimes developmentally ahead because their small school may have simply moved faster. We’ve seen this happen frequently when kids come in from the outside.

In addition, if a student comes in when they’re seven or eight, they’re little and adorable. There is also a perception that the dancer may always be viewed by the school as little and adorable. Even when they’re 17 and on the cusp of womanhood! We don’t know that this is a fact, but we’ve heard this enough times to wonder if there is some truth to that.

Promotions To The Next Level Are Not Guaranteed

Finally, at a certain level, schools make cuts. Cuts are made at the discretion of the staff and are usually based on how much the staff sees potential in a certain dancer. Ballet is a numbers game and at the higher levels, there simply aren’t enough spots for everyone to move up. For example, while there might be three classes of level 3 girls at a school, that quickly goes down to two and then only one class in level 6. There isn’t room for everyone. There is often a big cut between an intermediate level of a school and the advanced levels. These cuts are designed to clear space for students that may be coming from other parts of the country and even the world. Some schools cut more deeply than others, so it’s good to know what typically happens at a given school if your dancer is considering it for a year-round program.

The reality is that no one is guaranteed a spot, even if they’ve been there since they were seven. And, promotions are not automatic. So, as you’re thinking about when to send a student off, think about what the implications might be if your dancer joins a school at the intermediate level. Are you prepared for them to potentially not get moved up or even assessed out? It happens. We’ve seen students relocate and then get let go after a year. 

As we mentioned before, we’ll be posting a series on all the questions you should ask in choosing a residential program. But, hopefully, this has shed some light on how the levels of a school work and how it might impact your dancer.