Can I Dance in the Ivy League?

Yes — with meaningful qualifications about what that looks like and who it's right for.

The Ivy League and other highly selective universities — schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Penn, Brown, Cornell, Stanford, MIT, Duke, and their peers — are not primarily known for dance training. They don't offer BFA programs. They don't have conservatory structures. They are research universities where academic excellence is the primary organizing principle.

But most of them have dance programs — some of them genuinely strong ones — and students who are serious dancers and serious academics sometimes find that these institutions offer something they can't find elsewhere: a world-class education alongside meaningful dance training, in a community that values both.

What dance at selective universities actually looks like

The dance programs at most highly selective universities are typically housed within arts or performing arts departments and offer a combination of technique classes, choreography courses, and performance opportunities. Students can major or minor in dance at many of these institutions, though the major is typically a BA rather than a BFA — meaning it has a stronger academic component and a less intensive studio training structure than a conservatory BFA.

The quality varies significantly between institutions. Yale's dance program, for example, has a serious reputation within the context of the university. Harvard's Office for the Arts supports significant dance activity alongside more formal academic coursework. Stanford's dance program is active and has produced professional dancers. Princeton has a strong dance curriculum with connections to significant professional artists.

Beyond the formal programs, most highly selective universities have student dance companies — sometimes many of them, covering everything from classical ballet to contemporary work to ballroom to hip hop — that offer performance opportunities alongside whatever formal training the academic program provides.

Who this path is right for

The student who belongs at a highly selective university dance program is a specific kind of person: someone who genuinely wants a world-class liberal arts or research education — who is excited about pursuing academic depth across multiple disciplines, who is drawn to the intellectual culture of a research university, and who can genuinely compete academically at institutions that admit a very small percentage of applicants.

And who also wants to keep dancing seriously — not at the professional conservatory level, but seriously.

This is not a compromise position. It is a genuine choice by a specific kind of student who knows that they want both things and has found an institution that offers both at a high level.

The student who is primarily a dancer and is considering the Ivy League primarily for the prestige of the degree — who would rather be at a dance conservatory but thinks a Harvard degree might be more useful — is probably making the wrong choice. The dance training at most highly selective universities is not equivalent to serious BFA training. A student who needs the depth of development that a conservatory provides will not get it at most Ivy League institutions.

The audition question

Most highly selective universities do not require dance auditions for admission. Dance ability is not part of the admissions evaluation, and students are admitted on the basis of their academic profile, essays, and extracurricular record — which may include dance but is evaluated holistically with everything else.

Some programs have auditions or placement classes after admission to determine placement in technique courses. Others are open to all enrolled students.

This is different from BFA programs, where the dance audition is central to the admissions decision. Students pursuing Ivy League and other highly selective universities should focus their energy on the academic application — test scores, grades, essays, extracurriculars — rather than on dance audition preparation.

The dual application path

Some students apply simultaneously to BFA dance programs and to highly selective universities — essentially keeping both paths open and deciding between them based on what they're offered.

This is a legitimate strategy but a demanding one. The two application processes are genuinely different — BFA auditions in November through February, highly selective university applications in November and January — and doing both well simultaneously requires significant organization and energy.

For students who are genuinely uncertain between the two paths, the dual application approach allows the decision to be made with real offers on the table rather than hypothetically. But be honest about whether you can do both well — spreading yourself too thin across two intensive application processes can result in doing neither as well as you could have with focused effort.

Book a free call at dancingincollege.com to discuss your specific situation and goals.