I don’t know how kids who get into the Ivys or public Ivys are able to take 6 AP classes per semester while also having time to play sports, do debate, be in student government, or do a multitude of other extracurriculars. If you are taking a demanding course load, you are going to be spending 3+ hours per day on homework or studying. Just sports alone takes around 20 hours per week, so you won’t be sleeping much just from that. In places like the Bay Area, you don’t see many high achieving academic students play sports for that reason. The class president usually isn’t a top student academically too. Does high school just involve compromises if you care about excelling in a rigorous coursework?
In our experience, very selective colleges understand when rigor is decreased to some extent in order to fully focus on, for instance, music outside of school. It really depends on the level of the EC accomplishments. It is not possible to “do it all” in high school, even in practical terms of scheduling and time. Choices do have to be made from what I have seen anyway.
“Study: Too Many Enrichment Activities Harm Mental Health” (NEA Today, 3/31/2024)
Everyone has a limit.
However, some people are way faster with school work than others. Some of it can be natural attributes, but a lot can be learned habits that make you a lot more efficient with your time doing school work. And in fact, those habits will likely serve you well in college too.
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What habits are the most impactful from your experience?
Rigorous coursework doesn’t have to be six AP classes (and except in rare circumstance isn’t for most students, or if they do it is only for one out of four years). When you are looking at it from the outside, you have no idea how time consuming those AP classes really are.
Teachers have a lot of leeway in how they assign work. My oldest (a good student, but was not interested in selective schools) got scared away from taking APUSH by a coworker from a different high school bemoaning how much homework she had been assigned in the class. My next oldest kid was not deterred, and took APUSH. We learned that at my kids’ school, the APUSH teacher rarely assigned more work than could be completed in class – maybe an hour per week, max.
Some students are fast workers and complete a lot of their work during class or maybe during open periods. Some sports don’t take 20 hrs per week (My kids compete in a seasonal sport that only takes 8-10 hrs per week for about 2.5 months of the school year). Some extracurricular activities may take 10 hrs per week at one school, and an hour per week at another depending on the structure of the club/team/activity.
I have a student at school that’s not an Ivy but appears in most Top-20 lists. He took a lot of APs but many (like the APUSH class I mentioned above) were not that hard for him and he did far less than 3 hrs of homework most nights. He did that one short sport season a year. He did a variety of extracurriculars, had summer jobs, started a couple of small clubs at his school, and really did do a lot of things – but certainly not ALL the things. He still made choices and had to say “no” to some things he wanted to do. I have no idea which combination of the things he did got him into a top school, but he had a great time trying a lot of things in high school, and would have still been satisfied had he gone to his “safety” school. Certainly no one else could replicate his exact path!
I guess what I am trying to say is everyone is making choices, and it’s super hard to know from the internet or even from watching someone across your high school exactly how it is all playing out for each individual.
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I believe some people have in their gene that 5 hours of sleep per day is enough. The “do it all” kind of students I’ve had/witnessed almost all have this gene. My “guesstimate” is about 1 maybe 2 in a graduating class of 100.
Time management is an important skill but the amount of time is not really the same for everyone. When I taught in a private school, one outstanding student A had top of the class GPA, perfect score on PSAT and SAT, eagle scout, national title in chemistry competition, national title in debate, and state title in cross country. He didn’t need much sleep. He also had someone driving him to and from all the places so he could do work in the car. He had everything in his daily life well planned and provided. Another outstanding student B I had while teaching in public school had #2 GPA, PSAT in low 1300s and SAT in mid 1400s. She held leadership positions in several student organizations since 9th grade and had a part-time job since 10th grade. She took the school bus (no AC in Texas heat, long route with loud noises, etc.) until senior year when she started driving herself and giving rides to friends. In my mind these two kids had similar or equal time management skill but they clearly did not have the same amount of time to use. A was accepted to multiple Ivies and B was rejected by Rice.
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I think different people benefit from different things the most, but there are some basics that seem to apply to most people.
One general set like that is making sure to get regular sleep, proper nutrition, some light exercise, and stay hydrated. It is amazing how much that combination can speed up your work. I note if you are ever feeling blocked, overwhelmed, or so on, try drinking some water as you take a brisk walk for a few minutes. It can be shockingly effective sometimes.
Another good general habit is having a designated quiet space for doing work, with minimal distractions.
A third is regular breaks, like 5 minutes every 25 minutes is common.
A fourth is don’t fall behind. Do things by the deadline, or earlier. If you are struggling with something in a class, immediately get help. That sort of thing.
Then more personal stuff can include whether you like doing some quick and easy tasks first, or going right to the hardest stuff. Some people like to put everything into a project planner of some sort, and some people like to really break down tasks into a lot of small steps, while others can just block regular time to work. Some people prefer working at certain times of day, which varies by person. Some people like study groups (but make sure they share efficient habits), some alone. And so on.
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I think that this depends a lot on the student.
Some very, very academically excellent students just need some down time, and can get stressed out if they try to do too much. A long list of ECs might not suit them. This might not get them into an Ivy League university for undergrad. For graduate school, admissions seems to be based on something else (such as excellent research experience).
Some other students are full of energy and want to just keep going. They might take tough classes and participate in multiple ECs and find that this is right for them.
And how long a student requires to keep up with a tough course might depend upon the student, and the course. Some of us were better at some subjects compared to other subjects.
I think that each student needs to figure out what is right for them.
And yes there are compromises all over the place, including the choice of which university to attend.
A few students can manage to “do it all” but many need to make choices/set prorities. The important thing for each person is to do their best in all areas without overloading.
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A reading habit that lets you consume large amounts of material in a short time. Ability to understand concepts deeply, especially in analytical subjects, like math. Both are developed habits – I wouldn’t call them innate. But the habits are developed in early childhood. The trick is being deeply interested in learning things that serves both habits well.
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It is quite possible to do well academically and play sports or other time-consuming activities. I played varsity hockey, D3 level, while a student at MIT, studying engineering. How you do it is called “time management”.
I actually had my best grades while in season. Out of season, I would figure I had more time and slacked off on my schedule. I would then find myself scrambling to finish assignments and not doing as well as I should have.
I found those time management skills to be extremely useful in my professional career as an engineer.
Good to learn those time management skills in high school.
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Most persons attending Ivy+ type colleges take a rigorous course load and also spend a good amount of time on ECs, but not to the extent that you listed. For example, among Princeton freshman who took APs during HS, the median number of APs in the freshman survey was ~8 over 4 years, or an average of ~2 APs per year. Extremely few took 6 per year. Students reported spending a median of slightly over 2 hours per day on studying and homework. Students also reported a median of ~2 hours per day on non-work ECs. 4 hours per day on studying/homework + ECs leaves enough time for a normal sleep schedule, as well as doing other things like hanging out with friends.
Many (most?) class presidents are top students, but there are also many exceptions. I expect the reason for this is class president voting is largely based on popularity, rather than academics. I doubt that a primary reason is students do not have enough time to both participate in student government and study for classes
Our HS never allowed this many APs. Students were able to begin taking AP classes junior year and were limited to 3 a year.
To answer your question, some students seem able to “do it all,” but the vast majority cannot, and that’s ok.
Mental and physical health are more important than “doing it all.”
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My 25 year old is this person, 6 hours a night at most, took about 9 AP classes, 3 season varsity sports, 5 night a week of dance (plus a week overseas). Officer in clubs, babysat and tutored, and one of the most social persons I’ve ever known. Had one B in high school. She got home after 9 every evening. She has to be doing something at all times. She flew alone to Italy for 4 nights at 20, and is known to go from the bar to the airport on long weekend trips. She definitely does not take after her parents, although some of her siblings are very similar, especially with FOMO.
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You are exactly right that you don’t need to do it all. Kids that focus on one thing often do okay as well.
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My daughter didn’t take 6 AP classes but did take an honors level load every semester and was an athlete. I’d often find her doing chemistry or math at the kitchen table at 7 am on Sunday because she had a game or practice at noon. She was very organized. She never watched TV. She’d go to the gym at 6 am because I needed my car to leave for work at 7:15, and her school didn’t start till 9.
She was extremely slow at reading and getting work done and she knew how much time she needed for assignments. She also needed a LOT of sleep (my kids always did). She didn’t do research or cure cancer or start clubs but joined groups she wanted to, had a group of friends to hang out with, and did her work. These same work habits carried on to college where she had some friend who were always partying and she did her work, and her work-outs, but she was in bed by 10 pm because she had required ‘lifting’ a few mornings per week.
Most top schools limit the number of AP credits they accept. Taking 6 AP classes might be the right level of rigor for some kids, but not for most. At my kids’ hs, those at the very top of the class went to UF, but several of the athletes went to the elite schools - one to MIT (volleyball), Navy (tennis), several rowers to D1 high academic schools.
Very few kids can have it all. Pick what’s important to you and if it is 6 AP classes you may need to give up other things (sleep, socializing, athletics). If you want a more balanced experience, take 2 AP classes and add other activities.
It does really depend on the APs. The only year my older kid had 6 APs was (weirdly) her sophomore year. But three were “easy” APs (env. sci, psych, CSP), one was hard (AP chem), one was AP lang (which I’d say depends a lot on the student and the teacher, but didn’t feel different to my kid compared to to any other English class), and the last was APUSH. Because she was a varsity athlete who does prioritize sleep, we did one time-efficiency thing as a family: talk a lot about US history during downtime, like reading aloud from the textbook, since the anecdotes are interesting (and after Hamilton came out, kids easily contextualized the info). The younger sibling benefited from this, too. When I was in high school, the most APs I took at once was five, during junior year, and I remember thinking it was more college courses that a college student takes (not really true, I realized later, since the pace is slower when you have a whole year compared to a semester to get through material). But I also remember my mom picking me up from tennis with dinner ready for me to eat in the car on the way to later evening stuff. So family privilege can make it manageable…which is to say it’s a somewhat unfair playing field and no student should feel there is something wrong with them if the work feels overwhelming. I hope we can take the colleges at their word when they say they aren’t looking for more than a couple of APs a year, and they pay attention to a student’s support systems as well when they evaluate.
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Also keep in mind that there are tons of fabulous colleges and universities throughout the country where you can get an outstanding education and have a wonderful four year experience. You don’t need to attend an Ivy level college to achieve your dreams.
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My kids always got the best sleep after doing sports.
They didn’t procrastinate on essays, projects, or assignments and divided the work into segments.
I think what you don’t understand now, is that these students can multitask and have been doing this throughout their young lives, such that by the time they get to high school, they are very well-organized.
During classes, they know how to pay attention and take valuable notes.
Our kids, when younger, were always full of energy. They were always outdoors playing games. We have a pool, so they swam. Played soccer, little league, volleyball.
They volunteered at our church, the local food bank, and rode their bikes on the trails. They had violin lessons. They played lots of board games, and playing Oregon Trail games, read Captain Underpants, Harry Potter, and participated in Scouts. They didn’t play a lot of video games.
High School was more of the same.
They did, however, know their limits. So if they couldn’t add an activity to their timelines, they didn’t.
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