| My personal opinion is that academics come first. My own children were very very heavily involved in their extracurricular pursuits (including music and theater as mentioned above) every afternoon, evening and weekend. However, academics did not take a backseat. They had to be good at time management and had very little free time. Academics still came first and were not compromised due to their busy lives or other endeavors/interests. Good academics are important in terms of getting into college. As a parent, if I felt academics were slipping while pursuing other interests, I would have to instill some sort of standard with regard to the academics if they wanted to keep the outside activities going. I didn't have to do that as my own kids happen to like academics and are motivated in that area but I fully understand some kids are not. But a standard for academics is critical for future educational plans such as getting into college. I work with clients now (I am a college counselor) who may have musical theater talent but have very very poor academics and this, I believe, has contributed to rejections in MT BFA admissions. The "not have a lot of time to devote to studying", I can very much relate to as I think my kids' schedules were insane in high school and are now in college as well. But they had to manage to put the time into academics....hours of work at night....late at night.....weekends, in car rides to activities, etc. They didn't let academics slip. It is difficult to time manage but priorities must be in place. I can tell you with a kid in a BFA in MT program now, her schedule is very very full but she has to somehow (not easy) get the academics done and is maintaining high graddes despite very little time for homework in her day. Today is the tenth day in a row that she has had to go to school for fifteen hours straight and then fit in her homework somehow. Actually today, I think she ONLY has 9 hours of school (it is Sunday, however) and so has to work in the AM before she is required to be there for 9 hours and then very late at night. It doesn't mean giving up studying. It means juggling a very very full schedule. I realize how difficult that is but it is critical for a high school kid to not let academics slip just to pursue the arts because academics are needed to get INTO college and then will be required to be juggled once IN college along with the BFA training. Colleges will examine the GPA to see if a student can handle all this in college as well. A GPA speaks of work ethic and time management with the arts training alongside it, but not instead of it. So, yes, it is indeed hard to get a good GPA while doing everything else but some do and they will have better odds at the college admissions process. I can tell you that as I have clients with a wide spectrum of academics and the ones with the good academic records are doing better at BFA admissions than the kids who did poorly in HS. I don't mean to be harsh about it but to give a peek into the reality of college admissions, plus some personal opinion that academics should not be compromised due to other pursuits in high school and that some students can and DO juggle both successfully, and since those kids are in the application pile, they will fare better than those who let academics slip while doing extracurricular endeavors. | 
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