There are nineteen competitive ballroom dances.  The dances are divided between the International style and the American style.  Among the International dances, there is a further subdivision into Latin dances and Standard dances.  The American style is also subdivided, this time into the Smooth dances and the Rhythm dances.  Below is a list of all nineteen dances in their appropriate category.

Couples compete against other couples with similar training experience.  In a competition, these divisions are made with the following categories:

• Newcomer/Pre-Bronze
• Bronze
• Silver
• Gold
• Pre-Champ
• Champ

Newcomer through Gold are considered to be "syllabus" levels where permitted figures are restricted to those specified in certain official syllabi (usually those sanctioned by the ISTD).  Other syllabi include those taught by commercial institutions (such as Arthur Murray or Fred Astaire Dance Studios).  Pre-Champ and Champ levels are considered to be "Open" levels (sometimes termed simply as "Open") and do not have any syllabus restrictions.

Level restrictions in competitions may be determined by length of time dancing or previous achievement.  The latter is usually determined based on how many times a couple may place in the finals of events.  Most collegiate competitions use the YCN rules.  Adult competitions tend to use criteria set by the USABDA.

Collegiate competitions are "amateur" competitions, competitions where both people in the partnership are amateurs.  This is in contrast with "Pro-Am" competitions (a student dances with his teacher) and "Professional" competitions (both members of the partnership are professionals).

Collegiate competitions are amongst the most competitive of the amateur competitions, especially for the syllabus levels, as they tend to host extremely large fields of dancers.  For instance, as an extreme case, the 2003 Harvard Beginner's Competition had 174 couples competing against one another for Bronze Swing.  This is in stark contrast to many Pro-Am competitions where there are often as few as two or three couples competing in an event.  Collegiate dancers also tend to fare well in the so called "Adult" competitions, particularly in syllabus events, indicating that the level of achievement in collegiate dancing is high (for instance, you can check out the Yankee Classic 2004 where dancers who routinely compete in collegiate competitions fared as well as others).  There is also an increasing number of “adult” dancers (as well as “junior” dancers) taking part in collegiate competitions.