I’m a sophomore in high school who’s part of one very time-consuming extracurricular: colorguard. I joined this year, and although my team certainly practices less than other teams (only six hours a week, and only on weekdays), the competitions and practices have kept me from doing other extracurricular activities.
I don’t regret joining guard–not one bit. It makes me happy (even though I probably won’t be able to pursue it in college) and my team is like my family. But there is no prospect at leadership (captains are always seniors, and there are other girls on my team who have been on the team for longer than me; either way, I don’t think the coach really likes me), and it’s made it impossible for me to do other extracurriculars (Science Olympiad–the A team is going to states, and the B team placed second at regionals; National History Day–I’m pretty much guaranteed to go to states every year, and I thought my project was good before I realized I couldn’t attend the competition; MUN–although I still go to some conferences, I was unable to go to two because of guard, hurting my chances at leadership positions). It’s also made me take easier classes (next year, I’m only taking three/four APs (depending on whether I’m accepted onto the school newspaper staff or not) instead of four/five).
Our guard team is good for its division (first place at three out of four competitions this year; although we weren’t able to attend championships because of a band trip, we definitely would have placed and could have gotten first or second), but it’s nowhere near the level of other schools (we’re in the second-lowest level, although we might be moved up one for next year), and we’re not in one of the circuits that allows a team to go to nationals.
Will colleges appreciate the time I’ve put into this (very time-consuming) extracurricular, or not? Have I put my time into this for nothing?
(sorry if that post was a little lengthy, but I’m worried)
On the Common App, there is a spot to write how many hours per week and how many weeks per year you spend doing an activity, so I wouldn’t worry about that. It is concerning that color guard is also affecting your course rigor and preventing you from doing any other extracurricular activities though. Is it because practices/competitions conflict?
For most colleges,–I can’t say all because I don’t know all of them-- they will judge extracurricular activities based on leadership. The more leadership you have the better your caliber. Although entirely unfair, some applicants may garner leadership positions by spending merely 5 hours a month on a club, yet others spend 5 hours a week on the same club to no avail. With other considerations, most colleges do not have the time to fully scrutinize applicants.
The dark truth is that most colleges just glean information from applications that may not reflect students true work ethics.
“Colleges” is not a good grouping. The term “colleges” embraces everything from CCs that accept everyone, publics and privates that don’t look at ECs at all or give them minimal consideration, colleges that take them into account, and colleges for which they are very important. If you have an idea of some colleges you are considering you can see how they evaluate ECs by looking at their Common Data Set filing.
I would never say you have put your time into this for nothing, since you clearly find it rewarding. If by “nothing”, though, you are talking about how this will affect your chances of college admissions then it all depends on where you want to apply. If you are thinking the 100 or so most selective colleges in the country then just amassing hours in an activity is not sufficient. As Stanford says
I think if you really thought outside the box, you could come up with ways to expand your EC’s in some ways. Even if they are mainly Color Guard oriented…can’t you organize some charitable or fund raising events that have to do with color guard? Can’t you get the color guard to participate in community events that they haven’t done in the past?
Even if these events aren’t actually involving color guard officially, why not come up with ideas to volunteer and do more service oriented things with other color guard members who obviously share the same schedule as you?
As for class load, I would really try to not have any EC effect that. Unless guidance can put in writing that there was a conflict in schedule that did not allow you to go take an AP class, I don’t think an EC is an excuse to not take a rigorous course load. Senior year D was student government president and the lead in the school show. She was coming home at 9pm M-F from rehearsals. On Saturdays she had rehearsals again from 9 to 3. She also was the leader of her accapella group which met on Sundays from 3pm to 5pm. She took 5 AP classes. Yes it was crazy, but many kids had the same or comparable schedules and you are going to be compared to kids like this for college admissions in rigorous schools.
You’re a sophomore in high school, and new to all this college stuff.
But the people in college admissions offices aren’t. Every single year, their whole purpose in getting into the car 5 days a week is to evaluate applications from other high school kids, many of them very much like you. Some of those kids are more involved, some less, but the common denominator is that the admissions advisors are very much aware of which activities involve how much time and energy and commitment. Knowing that information is a big part of the job they’re being paid to do.
I’m confused about why you say this is so time consuming that you can’t do any other ECs or take harder classes, but you also say it’s only six hours a week. That’s less than most sports or theatre practices. Can you elaborate?
It’s three hours afterschool on certain days, and I’m already taking three of the hardest APs in the school concurrently next year (AP Calc BC, AP Chem, AP Physics 1) alongside Honors English and either AP Human Geo or Journalism 1 (and Journalism requires out-of-class commitments); the fourth course (APUSH) requires a lot of outside work (40 pages of notes a night). It would be practically impossible to manage (note that I go to a VERY competitive (churned out over 100 NMSFs this year) Bay Area high school; our courses, especially APs, are very difficult). I also run a literary magazine at the middle school and workshops are on one of my off-days, so that takes up time.
When I said I couldn’t do extracurriculars, it was because of conflicting competition dates.
I don’t get home until 6:30 (sometimes 7) winter season, so it would be difficult to complete homework and study (AP Chem and AP Physics are also notorious for having tests on the same days) if I had one more AP course under my belt. Only one person in our school that I know of has taken APUSH with the rest of my courseload; he had Marching Band fall season as well, but we finish practice after the band and he didn’t have to do anything winter season. He had also been a Physics Olympiad finalist sophomore year (traveling team), so I doubt he had to study much for that subject.
And yes, I’m looking at top 100 colleges; right now, Stanford, MIT, and Brown are at the top of my list.
Also, the most I can do with guard is help start a team at the middle school. However, this would also be a huge time commitment and they tried last year for no interest.
Note that guard isn’t my only extracurricular and I have leadership positions in others; however, it is my most time-consuming one.
I would say to not count on colleges knowing or caring.
In general, don’t do ECs for college admissions. Do them because you truly enjoy them (to the extent that you wouldn’t mind if they affected admissions or not) and let the chips fall where they may. You don’t want to be one of those kids who are like “I worked so hard and didn’t get in to any Ivies/equivalents; it’s so unfair!” this time senior year.
The issue is that you can certainly justify to all of us why you don’t want more AP’s or have limited your EC’s and I DO think that some kids have crazy schedules and ridiculous workloads . But if you want to be competitive for top schools, unfortunately you will be compared with the kids who do schedule more time consuming EC’s and a full load of APs. And you will not have the opportunity to explain the perfectly understandable reasoning you are coming up with. Remember that when you ask an admissions counselor what is better–an A in a regular class or a B in an honors/ AP class?.. their answer will always be “an A in an AP class.” (And I have personally heard that exact answer used in info sessions at two schools.) So understand that that is the mentality you are dealing with. Good luck!
If you love colorguard and can handle the academics that is great. Try to see if you can get some kind of leadership position in the colorguard if that is available. Six hours a week is not a ton of time for an activity. You should look into doing other things even if they are on the weekend like maybe volunteer at a soup kitchen, Habitat for Humanity or etc. (it doesn’t have to be every week) to get another EC or two.
By the way, it’s six hours of practice time a week. Competitions are every other Saturday, generally, and last the whole day (7 AM to 7 PM). If you factor those in, it’s more like ten hours a week.
I plan on getting my volunteering done with summer camps over breaks; I can volunteer there. I already did 100 hours through volunteering for summer camps the summer before the ninth grade (I think that still counts as “high school” for colleges), but as it won’t count for my school or for NHS applications, I have to do more. Again, I haven’t actually listed all my extracurriculars, but I have quite a few. I just could have done more otherwise.
There is a small chance I can get a leadership position, but it all depends on whether one girl is going to do winter season senior year; there are two girls who are pretty much guaranteed captainship, but the third girl isn’t doing winter season this year or next year (but she is the best out of all of the other girls). However, there’s one other girl who really, really wants to become captain as well… It really all depends on what my coach thinks of me by senior year, but I don’t think she likes me very much, so I doubt I’ll end up as captain.
Sounds like your GC ought to be very familiar with the most selective colleges and recent students from your HS who have been accepted. You ought to be able to get much more informed & relevant advice from her/him than from the internet.
In my experience, colleges don’t seem to care about leadership as much as they say. I don’t have any major positions and I never was a captain of my sports team; I don’t think that aspect mattered. I think colleges just want to see the passion behind your EC’s. That means how many years have you been doing it and how much do you do it in one year. You seem like you love colorguard and have put a lot of effort into it; that effort will not go unnoticed.
Don’t worry about being captain; don’t do your EC for a position. You should do it because you love it. Colleges will recognize that when you do a full-time sport or at least a demanding sport for a length of time, that it kinda overwhelms a lot of other things.