Art High School?

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My son, who will be a Sophomore, wants to go to an arts high school for his Junior and Senior year. If he got accepted to the school, he'd be living in dorms. He wants to go to the school for theater. I'm not really sure what I should do.....
What should I do?

Sounds exciting...it might be good for him.
I really really regret not going to HSPVA...I tried...but I was too disorganized..

What's your biggest problem with it? The dorms? The theater? ?

It is a good thing that he knows what he wants. It is possible to survive a dorm if you have AS, I did it for 2 years.

Well, I assume that you wanted your son to get a good education and learn independence. So, this doesnt seem like a bad thing to me.

Perhaps you are worried about him choosing to focus his education in only 1 area? Is it that you want him to be exposed to things beside music and arts? I'm not opposed to developing multiple interests, but I find that many people by the age of 16 know full well what they will be doing as adults. I myself knew by that age I would be an engineer of some kind. As such, I attended a vocational school for my junior and senior year:
http://www.oakland.k12.mi.us/Default.aspx?tabid=663

The information I learned there about physics, drafting, manufacturing, and basic engineering principles have helped me out in college and my career MUCH more then the other classes I would have taken like arts and literature. Of course your son is in the opposite situation where he would rather deal with art then math and physics, but its the same idea. If your son knows what his career is going to be then I see no harm in letting him get a head start. This world may need engineers to design the items we use, but we also need singers and actors to make life more enjoyable. So, there is nothing bad about going to a school specializing in art.

Perhaps you are worried about him not being able to take care of himself?
Perhaps you are worried about your son acting inappropriately without you to guide him?
Perhaps you are worried that he would not be able to survive the highly social climate of dorms?
It is hard to give advice unless you voice your concern.

Like, many parents say that teens shouldn't leave the home until after high school since their teen years are so precious and all that...My son is very determined to be on Broadway and in Hollywood. A good friend of his(He's also in the musical my son's in right now) went to the school when he was in high school and he says it was a great school. But, others tell me I shouldn't let him because he may struggle like no tomorrow since it's a pre-college high school. I want him happy since he's always happy around actors and actresses and other people in the arts but, I don't want him doing bad in school. And, if you get anything lower then a C, you're kicked out.

Does your son understand your concerns? Does he understand the risk? Sometimes our kids can be so confident that that they aren't able to see those things, but if you've talked and explained and it's all sunken in ...

Let him take the risk if he feels ready for it.

Lol, I KNOW that is so much easier for me to say than for any of us to do. But we all know that we can't protect our kids forever. And sometimes you really have to let them jump off the ledge and see if the wings we've been giving them work.

It seems like a lot of AS find a real outlet in acting. I know very few people of any stripe will ever "make" it, but ... he's got to try. He'll always regret it if he doesn't. And if you hold him back, he'll resent you.

Just keep a back up safety net hidden and ready

I couldn't advise you.

There is a special high school where I live (Melbourne Australia)
It is hard to get into and is for dancers and artists and musicians etc.
You have to be really good to qualify.

But recently they did a survey of students who graduated ten years ago.

Not one of them was actually a professional dancer or artist or musician!