Dd trained at a large well-known school associated with a professional company for several years. During that time the school bent over backwards to attract, train and retain minority students. From year 1 her class was pretty racially diverse, reflecting the community: white, asian, black, hispanic and other minorities. The longer she remained in the school, the more students dropped out, usually because, pick one: it was getting harder or because they were no longer interested, wanted to do another type of dance, didn't have the ballet body: short legs, long torso, did not have the feet for pointe, just didn't like it and had been doing it for their moms to begin with. Dd is the only student from her class still studying ballet. She is minority, but not AA, so it's not so obvious, but she is a minority nonetheless. There are NO ballet dancers or students at any of the schools she has attended of her ethnicity. She has NO professional role models of her ethnicity to look up to, male or female. But she does have professional dancers she looks up to. They may not look like her, but she sees in them something share: the artist within. She loved being a student at the company school but ultimately left because she felt she needed to get the level of training provided to ballet students in Europe and Russia if she was to become a ballet dancer: the school's program is typical of that provided in the US, hours of training at the advanced level are 12-14 hours per week. But in Russia, for instance, (or at CPYB, in PA), students her age train many more hours per week and therefore are stronger technically. The quote about the quality of training in the US should not be dismissed lightly. Without high quality training, you will not be a competitive dancer. If the dancer is not competitive, they won't pass the audition.