Professional Performing Arts Personal Statement

It was below freezing weather on a Friday in December when I reached a decision that I had always known the outcome to; I needed to transfer high schools. I graduated the 8th grade thinking that I had struck gold. I would be attending a performing arts high school, in midtown Manhattan, with students as deeply engaged in their craft as I am. My romanticized idea of what high school could be like clouded my objectivity. Not to say that I didn’t research the school extensively; I did attend the open house, three auditions, and get input from current students. However, the mistake I made in my high school selection was overlooking what seemed to be the little things. There were tiny red flags such as the school’s small population of 495 students, plus being housed inside an elementary school, that I pardoned in order to obtain the high caliber acting education I so feverishly desired. On that December morning, i knew my fever broke. I fell in love with an idea, not a school.

The time I spent there was not wasted as I learned a lot about my self and the kind of academically rigorous environment I thrive in. Drama is a passion of mine, but as the year progressed I began to develop interests in areas outside of performing arts. I started to attend design workshops at museums and I also grew intrigue in psychology. I made use of what resources my school had in these areas, but there were limited options. I wanted to spend my remaining three years of high school at an institution that offered a breadth of rigorous learning opportunities, that were not so narrowly focused on