Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. If you've got an artsy middle schooler at home, they're going to be the focus of our last segment today; they and you as the parents. Maybe your artsy middle schooler who's dreaming of attending a specialized arts high school like LaGuardia, or Art of Design, or Frank Sinatra, or maybe Talent Unlimited in the near future.

Well, for those parents of eighth graders in New York City, perhaps you are already in the throes of preparing to film your kids' audition tape, or put together a portfolio that captures their visual art mastery of technique in time for that December 1st application deadline.

Now, getting into these schools isn't easy. Talent alone won't suffice. City Limits reports that students need knowledge, expertise, and polish as well. Depending on your child's area of interest, they'll need to showcase their talent in ballet, modern jazz, or West African dance. Perhaps they'll need to prepare to sing 16 bars of memorized music, or a monologue from the so-called Cannon.

Students interested in fine arts need to submit a portfolio "of at least five original artworks, including a self-portrait, still life, and figure drawing, additional work in any medium, and a full-page picture capturing your wildest ideas of what a fantastical sandwich looks like." That's a quote from the application instructions according to City Limits. It's unlikely that your kid is going to get all of that from a regular New York City public school art class.

Listeners, how are you preparing your children to get into a specialized art high school in New York City? 212-433-WNYC. Have they been taking lessons for years, or did you enroll them in a cram school this fall? Did you just start this process recently in any way, or has it been years in the making? Maybe you knew those instructions that I was quoting from before, those requirements for auditions and portfolio and have been in the throes of training for a long time. Maybe you hired a tutor or a consultant with expertise in the city's art high school admissions.

Call or text us with your stories of preparing your kids for this, or your questions if you're interested in it. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Joining us now to demystify the admissions process is, and I apologize, is it Alina Adams or Alina? Hi, there.

Alina Adams: Hi there. It's Alina. You got it right. Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Alina, welcome. She runs the New York City School Secrets website and is the author of the eBooks, Getting Into NYC Kindergarten and Getting Into NYC High School. Again, listeners, your stories or questions, 212-433-WNYC. Alina, I know you're deeply passionate about helping other parents navigate New York City-

Alina Adams: Very much so.

Brian Lehrer: -and the public school system. What's the heart of the process when it comes to these various arts schools?

Alina Adams: The heart of the process should be that your child is truly passionate about what are the things. As you mentioned, whether it's art, whether it's dance, whether it's drama, there is a lot of work that needs to be done. Although to give a compliment where a compliment is due, I really like the fact that in the past, you used to have to audition separately at every school. Now the process is centralized. You can send the same dance video to multiple schools, you can send the same portfolio to multiple schools. That's really wonderful, but as you just read off in the beginning, it's still so much work.

The first and foremost thing is that it's your child that wants this, not just you, because they have to be passionate about it because not only will that make the process easier, but the passion will come through in the work. That is definitely something that all the schools are looking for because in addition to the creative work, some of the prompts always ask, "Why is theater tech your jam?" or "Why do you want to study this?" If your kid is reading from a rote document and they're not the one driving this train, it will come through.

Brian Lehrer: In your column for New York School Talk, you share that it cost you more to prepare your kids to get into LaGuardia than it did to get them admitted to Stuyvesant.

Alina Adams: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Would you say that taking the SHSAT for specialized schools, the academic schools, as much as we debate how inequitable that is, is actually a more equitable admissions process than the auditions and the prep needed for those auditions for the art schools?

Alina Adams: Well, I would say yes for two reasons. The first is the SHSAT is very clear. You get a score, the score is not negotiable, and the score is not up to the whims of a person making a personal judgment. You get a score and it's either enough to get into a school or it's not enough to get into a school. We all know with art done at the professional level, one critic may say, "This is the best production I've ever seen," and another critic may say, "It's terrible."

Already, when you're judging art, it's subjective. Whereas the SHSAT is strictly objective. It's not even looking at things like race, or gender, or age. It's just looking at what score did you get? Whereas all of those things get rolled into the art piece.

The second part, as far as equity goes, is the SHSAT, there are tons of prep books available. You can buy a $20, $30 book, you can do a practice test. You can see, did I get this answer right? Did I get this answer wrong? It's clear. When it comes to the arts, very few kids can teach themselves dance. Very few kids can teach themselves voice or an instrument especially. While I did not set out to "prep" my children for admissions, I just followed their passions. I'm going to keep coming back to it has to be your kids who are into this, not you.

The fact is, my older son loved to draw from an early age. He started taking classes at the Art Students League, which is a wonderful organization in Midtown when he was eight years old. By the time it came time for him to prepare a portfolio for LaGuardia or other art schools, he had pieces that he had worked on with professional teachers. At the Art Students Leagues most of the teachers are also working artists. That took almost five or six years.

My younger son was passionate about dance. He took classes at Ballet Hispanico, another wonderful organization, starting at the age of seven. When it came time at 14 to apply to dance at LaGuardia, he had teachers who had worked with him for years and knew how to help him put together a solo, which is one of the things that they asked for. While I didn't set out to pay for prep, when I look at what I did with my kids before they applied to high school, I certainly spent much more money on their interest in the arts than I did on the SHSAT, which was literally just buying a stack of books. Then the older brother actually gave the stack of books to the younger brothers, so we got two uses of it.

Brian Lehrer: Let's get some parent calls in here. Antonio in Bayside, you're on WNYC. Hi, Antonio.

Antonio: Hey, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What you got?

Antonio: Oh, essentially, my daughter is already enrolled in dance. She's getting ready. She's seven years old, and she will be now also enrolling a painting, illustrating drawing class. She's naturally talented in both. She's very lucky. She gets her drawing skills from her dad and her dancing skills from her mom. Hopefully, this girl will be fortuitous for her in the future.

Brian Lehrer: Antonio, good luck to you and her. Paul in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Paul.

Paul: Hey there, Brian. I went to the High School of Music and Arts before it became LaGuardia, well, back when it was on the city high school campus. I was a voice major. My daughter ended up going to Art and Design and being a photographer. Neither one of us took any kind of additional special classes. We got all of our training from the New York City Public School system.

When we talk about having to take extra classes and paying for extra classes to get into some of these specialized schools, I feel some of the schools are good enough to already offer the children what they need. The school pulled together my daughter's portfolio for Art and Design, and she ended up going to Art and Design and studying photography. Now she works for Getty.

Brian Lehrer: Cool. Paul, thank you very much for your story. I wonder, Alina if you think things have changed since Paul and presumably his daughter's day. I don't know how long ago his daughter got in, or maybe some schools can do that back up the kid like that, but a lot can't.

Alina Adams: Yes. Thank you for saying that, Brian. I'm very, very happy for the caller who just came in, but that is not the case for the majority of New York City Public School students. Yes, there are some schools that offer that. For instance there's a school called Ballet Tech, which kids audition into and where they definitely get high-level dance training. There are some middle schools that do offer art. Some of them based on an audition themselves. For instance PPAS, Professional Performing Arts School, is a middle school that does offer arts training, but you audition to get into that, so that already speaks to either at least some access to.

As he said, he was doing it himself, but you have to have access to drawing paper, you have to have access to these things existing. He said her teachers helped put together her portfolio which is wonderful. I'm very sorry to say that the majority of New York City public school, middle school students do not have access to either that level of instruction or even that level of information that they know that this is something they could do.

Brian Lehrer: I think Lisa in Queens has more to that point. Lisa, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling.

Lisa: Hey Brian, I love your show. You always bring up great topics. I will say I'm the parent of three high schoolers now, so I've been through the high school process. I myself went to Art School in New York City. Unfortunately, my kids are not interested, but I have plenty of friends that have sent their kids to great art schools in the New York City public school system.

I will agree my kids have all gone through middle school and even if you have an art program in your middle school, you don't get that every year, or you don't get that every semester, or you might only get it one semester out of three whole years in school.

The cost of I think she said paper, paper is crazy expensive, so are all kinds of other oils, and pastels. These are all very very expensive luxury items that I don't even know if schools budget for all of those things, but certainly not every household can. The free programs that are available you have to have an adult on your side that will push you into finding them, applying for them, going to them. It's so unaccessible for so many people.

When the high school process, which is bananas in New York City, when they're pushing equity, equity, equity, all the time, they're so hypocritical in how unequitable all of these programs are and how unaccessible they are to so many students.

Brian Lehrer: Lisa, thank you for your call. Alina, there are proposals all the time for trying to make the SHSAT prep process more equitable. Of course, a lot of people want to do away with that altogether, especially as a sole admission criteria for getting into those schools. There also other proposals while it still exists like universal test prep and things like that. Are there proposals that you advocate or that you have covered as a journalist for making art high school application processes more equitable?

Alina Adams: Well, as the previous caller said, she was absolutely right, you need to have an adult. If it's not apparent through no fault of the parents, they just don't know these programs exist or they don't have the time to do it, there are programs which are free as the previous caller said, where they will give you training for playing an instrument which is something that's very difficult to teach yourself. Also just how put together, how to put together a portfolio.

Here's the problem, you have to know they exist too. At every level, there is not just a matter of access, there's the matter of knowing that you should ask for access. The first and foremost thing that I think should be done before we talk about the nitty-gritty of the program, is how do we get the word out to people, that these programs are available just like the SHSAT, the free SHSAT prep programs which exist. There are multiple programs, some of them come out of Lincoln Center. Some of them come out of different schools that offer scholarships.

Like for instance, as I said my son took dance class at Ballet Hispanico. They offer scholarships but you have to know that, A, there are these art schools to which you need to apply to. B, this is how you apply to them. C, this is how you prepare to apply to them. D, there are programs and people who will help you apply to them. It's a multi-step process, and we seem to be trying to jump a couple of steps instead of going back to the very first one, first just letting people know what's available.

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Brian Lehrer: Alina Adams, runs the NYC School Secrets website and is the author of the e-books, Getting Into New York City Kindergarten and Getting Into New York City High School. Thank you so much for joining us on the arts-oriented Schools.

Alina Adams: Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: That's the Brian Lehrer Show for today produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen produces our Daily Politics podcast. We have Milton Ruiz and Juliana Fonda at the audio controller. Stay tuned for Allison.

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