<p>Sorry guys, I thought this thread had died. Back to answering.</p>
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I loved swimming, we had a great team and coaches, and I improved far beyond what I thought I could have done before college. That said, the time commitment is incredibly hard. We trained a bit over 20 hours a week and had meets most weekends during the main part of the season. Total combined time at the pool/gym could hit 30 hours some weeks, which is really hard when you’re balancing more difficult academics and trying to have friends outside of the team.</p>
<p>That said, I managed to do it for one year. I got good grades, took 4 classes a quarter, and made a bunch of friends outside of the team. But if you aren’t going to sacrifice something, then sleep is going to be hard to come by. I was up plenty of times at 2 am doing problem sets with practice at 6, and I am not a guy who enjoys getting less than my 7-8 hours. Plenty of sleeping in class as well.</p>
<p>It’s hard, but if you really love swimming I highly recommend giving it a shot for a year. This is just me personally, but it was a great experience getting to train that hard and improve that much, and my performances at conferences put a great high note to the end of my swimming career.</p>
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<p>Not sure if all of these are exactly right, but something like:</p>
<p>Background: Asian, Virginia, Public HS
SAT: 800 Reading, 800 Math, 760 Writing
SAT IIs: 800 Math, something else maybe?
GPA: 4.0
APs: Calc BC, Macro, Micro, Language, Lit, World Hist, US Hist, Gov, Stats. Think that’s it. All 5’s.
Classes: Took Multivar calc, Differential Equations, and Linear Algebra from community college/UVA.
Other: National Merit Scholar, Math Honor Society VP, some community service, lots of swimming, band (clarinet), couple honor societies, math contests (made it to whatever the round after the AMC12 is)</p>
<p>Though, I’ve found among my friends that on the “stats” side I’m on the high end. Most people I know are closer to a 2100-2200 SAT, though most of my friends come from before the acceptance rate drop.</p>
<p>Hyde Park is pretty dull to be honest. Most of the stuff you’re doing is going to be on campus or you’re going to make a trip downtown. There’s a handful of bars, some restaurants, a bowling alley, but nothing really special. Most of my social life is/was spent hanging out at people’s apartments/dorm rooms, going to frats, or going downtown when I can get time.</p>