Gayatri Oruganti wore a traditional Kuchipudi costume for the Guinness Dance Convention in Cupertino, Calif. in 2008. (Photo courtesy of Gayatri Oruganti)

Getting into a competitive college is no cakewalk — but sometimes a controlled pirouette or convincing daru can’t hurt your chances. Two of the College’s newest students danced their way through high school and straight into the class of 2014.

In 2008, Gayatri Oruganti, freshman sociology and international studies double major, joined 328 other dancers in Cupertino, Calif. for an eight-minute Kuchipudi performance that would secure them a place in the Guinness World Records.

Kuchipudi is a classical Indian dance form from Andhra Pradesh, South India. The theatric dance itself blends complex choreography and assorted facial expressions to tell an ancient story.

“The dance itself is very stylized and the performance tells a story. It’s the expression, it’s movement, eye movement and eye contact – there are a lot of things that you have to be in control of,” Oruganti said.

Even though she has been dancing Kuchipudi several hours a day for the last nine years of her life, Oruganti concedes that this ancient art form remains difficult to master.

“The convention was instrumental in evoking a passion. (Kuchipudi) is an incredibly hard art, I’ve been learning for 10 years and I can’t even say that I’ve been doing it justice,” she said.

After sustaining a knee injury three months ago, Oruganti found her dancing an impasse. Although unable to dance herself, she still watches performances as an audience member.

“In my head I’m still a dancer, once I can start doing it I’m definitely going back,” she said.

Lauryn Burnett, freshman accounting major, went to high school twice. Sort of.

By day she attended her normal classes, reading canonized literature and cross multiplying binomials. By night she attended the New Jersey School of Ballet (NJSB), getting an entirely different kind of education — smoothing the movement of her plié or strengthening her arabesque.

Just like college, the NJSB offered an eclectic array of subjects and teachers.

“Depending on the teacher, there are different forms of ballet. There’s the Russian teacher that stresses turnout and expects you to be extremely flexible,” she said.

Her four years of ballet training culminated in a 12 day stint at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, where she performed Tchaikovsky’s beloved ballet, “The Nutcracker.”

When the time came to perform the seminal piece, Burnett’s rote training paid off.

“We worked on it week after week and had rehearsals on stage. When you’re finally backstage, you prepare makeup, costume fittings and line up behind the curtain. Then, when you hear your music, it’s a very rewarding feeling,” she said.

“You need to be very graceful, but it also requires a lot of strength. The goal is to make it look easy and effortless,” she said.