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College offers, DaDAs, statistics and mathematical formulae?


Katymac

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OK this is purely speculative & I'm asking because I'm nosy not because it will change anything. I asked on another site & they didn't really 'get' it

Plus I imagine not many people would really care - but it is the maths I am interested in really (I'm odd that way :rolleyes: )

DD has applied for been offered a place on a Performing Arts college & I'm interested in how they sort out the places.


I 'understand' they scored all the teenagers at audition, as the auditions happen the offer places, then we submit our financial information.

The DaDA is means tested & the fees are high; part way through the auditions they find out how much funding money they get.

So they are offering places not knowing how much funding the teenagers would get & if they don't get the funding they may not come

So how do they work it all out? Is there a formula? Is it best guess? 

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Speaking with my accountancy head on for the moment::

 

:wacko:  :wacko:  :wacko:

 

That just about sums it up I think!!

 

It is probably a nightmare as they are trying to fit a jigsaw together without knowing what the picture is, or how many pieces the have....  As far as I remember from the many, many posts on the (very) long  DADA thread last year, some of the posts did talk about this exact thing.

 

edited to add - Not sure if govt has announced the Dada figures/tables for the 2014 intake yet.

Edited by taxi4ballet
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I think the number of places they offer is a sort of best guess based on years of experience.  One place DD auditioned at they told us they normally made x offers because that usually gave them y ending up on the course, give or take a few but they could be flexible.

 

DADAs I think used to be simpler as before they had a set number - say 20 - so could simply offer the top 20 DADAs and then as some were turned down, that DADA was offered to the next person on the list.

 

Now my understanding is that the college gets a pot of DADA money so I presume that same college having 20 previously would now have the funding to offer DADAs to 20 people - assuming they all needed full financial assistance.  Then it gets complicated as the financial forms are received and they then know that actually because of the parental contribution by those needing less financial assistance, they still have £1000 unused for person 1, £3000 unused for person 2 and so forth and so may be able to offer a DADA to person 21 aswell.

 

It is a long drawn out process being repeated in many colleges and some people with an offer may never be given a DADA and as you say may not then be able to go BUT if you do not get one originally and stay on the waiting list, it may well still happen, even a few months after the original letter from the DADA funding audition.  I have certainly known of people at 14 on a waiting list at a college with an intake of 30 who still got DADAs.

 

I don't work at a college or in the finance department - this is only my understanding of how it works from having asked people similar questions.

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It is a mad, mad sum isn't it?

 

So DD has offers - we have no idea where on the list she is & bizarrely whether or not she gets a place depends not so much on her dancing ability but on how 'nominally' well off the parents of the children higher on the list than her are

 

How odd!!

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After the DADAs are awarded - initial batch - some colleges let you ring up and find out whereabouts on the list you are - but no idea which ones.  I've just seen comments on threads about it.  We were never in that position.  But rest assured if your DD has an offer for a college in the first place it means she is good enough.

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There was one college a couple of years ago, a very well known one, who offered far more places than they had Dadas for to account for those who would reject the places

 

Only lots more students accepted and managed to find the fees than usual so they ended up with a year group way bigger than usual & were understaffed.

Whoops!

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Goodness - once is bad enough, but twice sounds like someone wasn't paying attention.  The institution I am talking about does have 'school' in it's title. It was during overseas auditions that these offers were made.

 

But surely, in the ballet world, it is only schools that are in the DADA scheme?

 

Edited to add last sentence

Edited by Pas de Quatre
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