16 or 18

[DanceDiva]

My DD is just taking her GCSE options in Yr 9 and is trying desperately to convince us to let her audition for college places at 16.

Apart from a mothers obvious retort of 'You're too young to leave home' and dads response of 'You need A levels for when you change your mind ' what is everyones experiences / views on this ?
DD is a first year CAT student at the moment and would be looking at doing a dance related / MT course of which we are yet to decide.
Just wondered if in fact 16 WAS too young to leave home / cope with the course pressures depsite my DD being a mature if slightly naive young lady.
Suppose this question is more pastoral related than training related but hope someone has experiences of it all going right or wrong on applying at 16 ?
Anyone wished they'd gone earlier or left it later ?
Thanks x

[dorothy]

My dd is doing a Btech Extended Level 3 MT course at her local college so luckily didnt need to leave home. Does your dd need to leave home to do it? Is there not a local FE college that does it near you? As regards your dd leaving home there are a few on her course that have come from outside the area and live in student accomodation and they seem to cope and survive okay. One is from the USA, has some relatives here but does not live with them, the other is from Scotland. There may be others but I know about those 2. I am not sure if I would have wanted my dd to leave at 16 not at least for the first year but I think she is ready now and would have been just about ready for the second year of the course to live on her own. I guess it depends on how mature she is. Not a lot of help I know but my dd loves the course and it is supposed to be the equivalent of 3 A levels and is accepted on MT related university courses.

[JayLou62]

My dd will be going at 16 (2014). She wants to apply for ballet and while training is expensive in the UK (plus her ballet teachers do not rate UK training) she is looking to train overseas. She will apply for Central and Rambert as she can access student loans, but will also apply for Germany, Portugal, Sweden and Hungary.
Most dancers will travel overseas anyway (hopefully she'll get into a company, but that's another post!) so I think she feels that in order to do what she loves and get good training it's worthwhile.
Won't half miss her though
However, her sister wants to do MT. She'll apply for degree courses next year (2014 entry aged 18 - not the top ones as we can't afford them). If she doesn't get a place, she'll go to a local dance college for a year, improve her dance, singing and acting standard and work towards teacher training and then apply again the following year.
Hth.

[FelixGirl]

Hi DanceDiva

I can't be a huge amount of help because although my DD is 16 and is in her first year at Dance/MT college, she is still living at home and commuting every day (much to her disgust!). However, there are a number of 16 year olds on her course who do live in (the college insists that the 16 year olds live with a college approved landlady in their first year) and they seem to cope very well (DD says she only knows of one student who finds it a bit emotional....and the only downside she could really come up with was the fact that she can't go clubbing with the 18 year olds!!!). There is no differentiation between the older and the younger students, and all streaming is based purely on ability.

I know that my DD loves it! She wouldn't have been happy staying on at school to take A levels, so we decided that she could audition and see how she got on and it was definitely the right decision for her.

Only you and your DD will know what's right for her but they do seem to cope very well (however traumatic it may be for the parents!!).

Good luck!

[2dancersmum]

My DD is 16 and is part way through her 1st year at Dance/MT college. The vast majority on her course live away from home, although it has to be said only about a third of the course started at 16. It was a very big step for her as she was only just 16, from a small village and had always got homesick on school trips in the past. My DD is with a landlady and I am pleased we chose this option. College days are long. She starts at 8am and does not usually finish until 6:30pm. She is doing A levels alongside her diploma and finds a good portion of the weekend is taken up by academic work. She has not really had time to be homesick. At college classes are streamed by ability not age. Outside college there can be downsides to being 16 - not being able to go to the pub or clubbing with older friends (she does not want to use false ID but some of the 16 year olds do), not being able to drive and sometimes at parties she does feel a little overwhelmed. But my DD has plenty of friends and is not lonely. I do think landlady accommodation is best for 16 year olds though. It is not so much avoiding the workload of cooking/washing etc as the safety net of having a neutral adult in the house. A lot of drinking etc does go on in some of the student houses. My DD has no regrets and although I miss her I know she is far happier there than she would have been staying on at school. I also find that with plenty of phonecalls and skype I probably get to have more proper conversations with her now then when she was home doing her GCSEs. My DD was quite particular at auditions though. She even did not attend one recall audition as she felt that she was not yet ready to live in that area on her own. Like felixgirl we took the option to audition and just see how she got on. Good luck.

[Robsmumma]

My dd went away to college at 17, did one term, seemed ok. Came home for Christmas and couldnt get her back again! Had a year home then tried again. She is on Urdang foundation atm and home every weekend so breaking her in gently. Now 19 she is much more ready to leave, I hope lol

[DanceDiva]

Thank you all so much for your replies.
I know its only 'early doors' with her just sorting out her GCSE options and another 2 years is a long time but just gathering info at the moment and weighing up our options.