School of American Ballet vs. Julliard School

There are many prestigious dance schools in the country, but the School of American Ballet and Julliard School are the most prestigious of all. Julliard, to me though, seems the most prestigious. Although both schools are very competitive and only the best of the best attend these schools, students of Julliard eat, sleep, and think ballet the whole time they are attending. Any dancer would enjoy the experience of taking an audition class from these two schools, but actually getting into Julliard would be incredible.

The School of American Ballet is located in New York City's Lincoln Center. Out of any other school in the country, it trains the most dancers who move on, to become professional ballerinas. George Balanchine developed this program in 1934 with hopes to create dancers who reflected and enhanced the beauty he loved so much in the dance. To get into this school, auditions are required. Even for the eight year olds who dream of becoming prima-ballerinas. You must show high potential for becoming a dancer and strive for excellence in every step in order to attend the School of American Ballet.

New York City is also the home of Julliard School. Julliard was first founded as a music school in 1905 by Dr. Frank Damrosch, who thought it ridiculous to have to go abroad to continue the study of music after high school, and wanted to establish a school with high-quality music training. This went on and was more successful then ever and in 1951 the dance division was added by composer William Schuman. Since only high-quality learning happens here, it is very very expensive to attend and very competitive to get into. No video auditions are accepted. A prerequisite to attend is a live audition where they must impress the "judges" to get into this school.

All in all, because you must be very very driven to attend both the American School, and Julliard, Julliard is more prestigious. It is harder to get into and is non-stop dancing and studying. The School of American Ballet, is not a college and therefore does not combine studies with dancing. The dancer that attends Julliard, must know that they want to be dancing for the rest of their lives.

Works Cited
"School of American Ballet." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 11 Nov 2008, 19:10 UTC. 12 Nov 2008 .

School of American Ballet. "Overview." The School of American Ballet. 2008. School of American Ballet. 12 Nov. 2008 http://www.sab.org/school/overview.php.

"A Brief History." Julliard. The Julliard School. 14 Nov. 2008 .