<p>Ok so first off I would like to say that I am a junior atm and I get mostly A’s and a few B’s. I take 2 - 3 Honors/Ap classes each year. The problem for me atm is that I have done cross country and track for the past two years. If I decided to drop those and instead join a SAT preparation team in the spring and do a community based club in the fall, would colleges be angry at that. My goal is to get into Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and I don’t want to destroy my chances.</p>
<p>I’m also not an all sports person. I’ve done team building events, helped in my community, and am now joining Antioch. So again, does my choice to drop the sports destroy my college future?</p>
<p>No. I dropped tennis and I have a load of time to study for SATs (2100-2200) and start a lot of clubs (and I’m a sophomore too) which actually, in the end, would be better than doing a sport, which sucks up a lot of your time and can cause you to do not as well in other areas and/or be able to participate in only a sparse amount of activities.</p>
<p>Oh yeah I also want to give some examples. The top two people in the graduating class last year ('10) from my school both did sports for all 4 years. One of them, the salutatorian, was even on varsity since a freshman for tennis. </p>
<p>They were both rejected to Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Caltech, etc. Sports ended up disallowing them for studying adequately for the SAT I (they both did not get higher than 2100) and the SAT II (probably also did not get more than 700 on any subject test). The practices sucked up a lot of their time and they had extremely ****ty extracurriculars as in they both had very few and they were very random ones which anyone could easily do. Those were just “little” extracurriculars that one just uses to build onto their resume.</p>
<p>On the other hand, there are many people who have been accepted to top universities who did not do sports. My friend, who graduated from my previous school in another city in '07, did not do sports and was able to get a 2380 SAT I, 750+ on 5 SAT IIs, leadership, speeches, government work, and extensive researching and reading on news in the Middle East. She was accepted into Harvard. If she did a sport, she would not have been able to do any of those things and probably the colleges could not identify a passion because nearly everyone does sports (she majors in Lebanese and Middle Eastern Studies btw). Also, if she had summer practice, she would not have had time to work on her essays, which she says took severel hundred times to redraft and work on.</p>
<p>Another person to add to my assertion is ChristianSoldier (fellow CC member). If you look at his stats, he only played sports for 1 year in freshman year (football). He was accepted into Princeton. </p>
<p>Playing sports doesn’t necessarily give you any advantage because nearly everyone does them. The only exception is if you are nationally ranked or part of Division I sports, which I’m sure you’re not since you did not mention it in your post.</p>
<p>I am a very good runner ( top 100 in the state ) but that does not matter when deciding on a college. I am thankful for your input so far. It was just bothering me that I heard colleges look for consistency and if I dropped the sports it would look very bad. Thanks again :).</p>
<p>I doubt many people join sports for the mere sake of having it on a application as compared to that of those who join clubs for the same purpose. If your ulterior motive for joining a sport is for improving college acceptances, I would suggest dropping the sport.</p>
<p>the answer is simple
if you like doing the sport, then continue to do so
if you don’t like doing the sport then don’t continue to do so</p>
<p>go through high school the way YOU want to, not the way colleges want you to (i don’t mean to imply anything because i do not know the answer to your question. this is just my feeling)</p>
<p>i’m a rising senior and i’ve played tennis all three years so far (first two years in jv, junior year in varsity, senior year will probably be in varsity) and i’ve done well on my SATs, SAT IIs, GPA, academics so for me, sports didn’t affect my grades</p>
<p>and i don’t take many extracurriculars because i don’t believe in taking EC’s to beef up my college application, i only take the EC’s that i’m generally interested in</p>
<p>Just remember, this may be your last oppourtunity to be on a varsity sports team. Also, I’d stick with it just for the camraderie. Sports are fun, don’t give them up unless you truly hate doing them. You have your whole life to work, but you only have a limited oppourtunity to participate in sports at a high level. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I hated those kids that went out for freshman football just so they could say they were on the team or so they didn’t have to do PE. They wouldn’t volunteer for scout team or anything, but they would always be the first to the water bottles. I would always try to de cleat those kids when I went the coaches forced them to go in during scrimmages.</p>
<p>I did scout team a lot, absolutely loved playing safety but got trucked by our starting RB more than I’d like to. Kickoffs were pretty fun too, although I was mostly contain. I never got to play much, maybe about 10 snaps mostly on offense in an actual game. Man, I got lit up in tackling drills so much but football definitely changed me for the better socially, physically, and mentally</p>