Emily McGoey started dancing when she was 3 years old and knew by the time she was 12 what she wanted to do when she grew up. Now she is making that dream a reality.

The Seneca Valley junior was accepted into the professional division of the Texas Ballet Theater, where she will spend her senior year preparing for a career as a professional dancer.

“I'm excited because it's time,” Emily said.

The professional division at the Texas Ballet Theater, located in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is the step before launching a career with a professional ballet company.

While many dancers in the professional division have graduated from high school already, Emily will have to make sure she keeps up with her schoolwork while also going through the rigorous training at the theater.

She'll live in an apartment with a roommate while finishing high school online through the Seneca Valley Academy of Choice cyber program.

Kara McGoey, Emily's mother, said she's not worried about her daughter as Emily knows how to cook, clean and perform the other household chores that can trip up young adults. There are only about 12 or 16 people in the professional division, so Kara McGoey trusts the instructors and director of the Texas Ballet Theater to keep Emily on track as well.

Emily began dancing when she was 3 years old after seeing a performance of “The Nutcracker” with her mother, she said.

Her mother enrolled her in a short summer dance program at the Dance Institute of the University of Akron to try it out. She loved it, Kara McGoey said. Her teachers said she seemed happy and focused and recommended Emily enroll in the fall program.

While Emily has studied many styles of dance, she enjoys ballet the most for its precision.

“I like that everything has a clear position,” she said. “There's always a certain spot for everything. I like everything to be exact.

Her family moved to Cranberry Township when Emily was 5, and she started at Pittsburgh Ballet House shortly after it opened under the instruction of Kwang-Suk Choi. Choi is also the artistic director for the Seneca Valley Academy of Choice's ballet program and a former principal dancer with the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.

Choi said he saw the potential in Emily even as a young girl, saying she was always happy, but focused.

Her longtime instructor said he has no doubt Emily will do well in Texas, saying she's a hard worker and has hardly ever missed a class.

“She's very diligent,” Choi said. “She has a very bright future.”

When she was 12 and entering eighth grade, Emily made the choice to start cyber school to give herself more time to focus on preparing for a career as a dancer.

“I've known this is what I wanted to do for sure since I was 12,” she said. “It's a lot of balancing and when you're younger that's hard. You want to go out with your school friends, but you have to go to practice.”

In a typical week, Emily devotes about 33 hours to dance practice. She spends the morning at Pittsburgh Ballet House before doing schoolwork. Then she goes to Seneca Valley for a dance class through the performing arts school. She returns home for more schoolwork before one last dance session at the Ballet House to close out the day.

In all, she dances about six hours each day during the week and three hours each Saturday. Sunday is a rest day.

That grueling schedule is made easier by having about five other girls her age in the pre-professional program at the Pittsburgh Ballet House. They share rides and do schoolwork together.

“We all have different goals of places we want to go so we're very supportive with each other,” Emily said. “We all want everyone to do well.”

Emily will perform as the Black Swan in the Pittsburgh Ballet House's production of “Swan Lake” next month. The show will run at 6:30 p.m. June 2 and 3 at the Seneca Valley Intermediate High School auditorium.