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Falling at the first hurdle!


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Sorry to hear of your nos Pointytoes and Discouraged. Good luck for Central.

 

Discouraged your DD sounds very talented and has obviously stood out before to be chosen to be an associate for so long. Do you think her physique has changed as she has grown up or something physical like shape of her foot. It seems like there are so many physical things that can count you out at a very competitive audition. Or does she get nervous in an audition situation? It must be frustrating to be in this situation especially for your DD after working so hard for so long. I am sure as others have said that things will work out in the end. Stay positive and fingers crossed for you. Have you lined up auditions anywhere else?

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What amazes me is that no one seems to know what they are looking for.

The teachers don't know.

If there is specific physical criteria then this should be published so that we don't waste our money auditioning if our DC's don't fulfil the requirements.

I am still dumb founded only ONE RBS SA got through to finals. That says a lot re the associate programme.

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Sometimes it's that undefinable special something though isn't it. And as I said on another thread, there are so few places - I'm not sure of exact numbers, but roughly speaking nearly half the US places will be taken by WL girls, then about half go to international students, the odd other vocational school student, that doesn't leave many.

 

Good luck for the Central auditions and to anyone else who still has other initial sixth form auditions to go - Tring, Hammond, Northern, LSC, Ballet West or maybe even the Bolshoi or other schools abroad. I hate this time of year on everyone's behalf - lower school, upper school, company auditions, and results of appraisals (and we're waiting to hear about vet schools!)

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Discouraged, have your DDs teacher/associate teacher ever given you feedback? I suppose there is competition from overseas as well as British associates for the places plus the vocational school pupils. There have been huge discussions on here about the physical requirements and preferences of the various schools. Sadly my DD has the wrong feet and we were told that she would never be able to train for classical ballet. She has continued to grow and at 14 is now 5' 8 and is now probably on the edge of not even being able to train for any dance course even though it is all she has wanted to do since she was 2. Her older non dancing sister has stopped growing at 5'7. It can be a cruel world.

 

Can you spread the net and see if there are any other ballet courses that she might like? btw the son of a friend of ours trained at Central and he has had a very happy career in dance working for a prestigious company.

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We know of one SA getting through from London and two from Birmingham. As there are only 8 year 11's in Birmingham that equates to a quarter of the class. You have to remember that associates are competing against girls from WL some of whom will have already been picked in preference to the associates when younger and foreign students who were not available to be picked as associates. It is therefore understandable that only the few top associates will be selected to compare with the other candidates at finals. Candidates for associates are picked on potential and are given appropriate training. However, just as in WL, there is no guarantee that potential will be fulfilled or that better dancers will not come along so there is no reason to suppose SA's should have a better chance at reaching upper school finals.

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Not necessarily - there are plenty of examples of students who haven't gone through vocational lower schools (I'm having supper with a mum of one who is now a professional ballet dancer later!), but certainly the majority have. Surely that's bound to be the case, and there'd be something wrong with the schools if it wasn't. (It's also the case that the majority of students at WL were JAs.)

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It must give you the edge. After all, the pupils at vocational school are putting in so many hours. That is not to say that only vocational pupils will get through but those that are auditioning for 6th form are the cream of the cream. They have got through years of critical assessments and put in more hours of training. Like a sports person - to get to the top takes top coaching and hours of training. Hopefully your DD will gain a place at 6th form and advance her training but whatever happens she will have learned from all the hard work and discipline she has put in so far.

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Of course it is hugely discouraging when 'no' letters arrive and natural to feel disappointment and frustration with the system.

 

But there are only a dozen or so places at available for Y12. And hundreds of talented candidates from all around the world vying for places - most of whom will have shown great potential, most of whom will be training 15 - 25 hours a week to maximise that potential. They have to be ruthless in whittling down candidates for finals.

 

RBS know the White Lodge Year 11s inside out (strengths & weaknesses) and have been training them for 2-5 years to be the dancers they want, yet they only pick around half of them for Upper School. Many of the other WLers tend to gain places at Elmhurst/ENB/Central or other ballet schools further afield - so they clearly still have the potential to be classical dancers, they are just not quite what RBS want. The same goes for the associates - while they have obviously been picked for the associate course because they have shown the most potential to benefit from RBS training, the school will already have a good idea of their strengths and weaknesses, so if they know they are not quite what they want, it makes sense that they don't invite them to finals. 

 

A dear friend's daughter is currently going through this gruelling process, so you have my sympathies. She is non-vocational and has been balancing a full academic load with 20 or so hours per week of ballet. No RBS finals for her - although she does have finals/places at other schools. It is tough at the top.

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For many I guess they don't until they actually see them - however I'm sure there are also those who could be discounted at the photo/application stage.  Which for parents would save us the time and expense of audtioning.  However DD on the whole enjoyed the audition experience and also gave her the opportunity to see the "competition", which I think is useful for those not at full-time school.

 

Marianne - how does your friends dd fit in 20 hours of ballet a week? (I've just topped up dd's - 4 1/4  pw or 6 3/4 on associate weeks) 

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I think I have already mentioned there are quite a few students in my daughters year who did not go to vocational school. The schools must look at all the students equally when they are auditioning. Someone mentioned a while back that when it comes to 6th form auditions it becomes a level playing field just like it was when we were all auditioning for a year7 place five years earlier. Don't lose faith if you didn't go to vocational school, there are a few daughters on the forum who didn't last year and one got into ENB and the other Trin

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Who knows what these schools want it would be easier if they sent out a list with the exact requirements but sometimes they just must look at someone and know they have what it takes.My eldest dd didnt go to vocational sch, when she was 15 her teacher advised her to have a go for Tring 6th form which she did,she came out of the audition and knew she hadnt got in as she said most of the girls in the audition were better than her and although she found the jazz part easy a lot of the ballet she had never done.After that we decided to look into musical theatre schools she already went to Laines and we then realised that the ballet was the thing most of these schools wanted.Luckily my younger daughter suggested we found a Russian ballet sch so we went along for an assessment and told the sch that my daughter wanted to work on her ballet to give her a chance later on for musical theatre,i also didnt think my daughter was tall enough and knew she hadnt had enough training for ballet,however they saw potential in her and said she had everything needed for ballet training but she was very far behind.She is now in her 2nd year of full time training and has improved immensly she knows that the ballet world is hard and has had to work so hard sometimes dancing seven times a week and doing A levels but she is so happy and feels she is in the right place.
Discouraged dont give up im sure in the ballet world there is lots of rejections but keep trying till you get a yes.

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Discouraged - I don't think RBS run first-round auditions as a cynical money-making exercise... I think that they have a set of qualities that they desire and are faced with huge numbers of talented candidates who have those qualities to varying degrees. It must be so difficult to weigh candidates you know against those who you have only seen in a crowded room for a few hours. Plus they are comparing apples and oranges - those who have been at White Lodge for five years, those who have only ever taken syllabus lessons after-school a few hours a week, those trained abroad in another style etc etc etc. I imagine that until they see them together, they can't decide who is closest to what they desire. 

 

Millie3 - with difficulty!!! Classes with a good local school 6 days a week, associate classes, private lessons + GCSE Dance at school. Then summer schools, workshops, masterclasses... it is a massive effort (in terms of time and money), but she has been the quintessential ballet-mad girl for years and even if she does not get to her dream school/company, I don't think she will ever see this as time wasted. Friend's DD is at a non-vocational school, but for her ballet is still absolutely a vocation. I wish luck to all those in her position.

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I agree with Marianne - I don't think there is anything cynical involved. Far from it, the teachers and panel members have passion and love ballet and know all too well that the children and young people coming to those auditions love it too and have made it their lives (for years at 6th form level). They know what it means to people which is why they look so carefully at the candidates. We all know how hard interviews and auditions are but intensely so when all candidates are so talented and able and so young and vulnerable.

Other schools know how hard it is and that is why they will take on pupils that have been assessed out or not gained a place at finals for another school.

 

I don't think a dancer would only go to their classes as a child to be successful at an audition in the future. They go because they love it.

It's a shame that so much anxiety creeps in the more serious they become about dance. Some of that probably comes from us adults who know how tough the real world is and are desperate for our children to be happy and successful and are so sad when they get knock backs.

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