<p>My son who is a freshman in high school is in Cross Country (Fall) and Track and Field (Spring). He is also in Orchestra. I see that the graduation requirement is 2 years for PE and 1 year for performing arts. If he quits after he is done with the requirements and takes on other classes, would the colleges look down for not continuing for 4 years? I am not sure whether he can do sports for all 4 years and take on AP classes from next year. Please advise. Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t be the first time a school had seen that, but I don’t know why you believe your son couldn’t do both sports and APs. Many students do.</p>
<p>I don’t think he shouldn’t gear his high school life to college admissions, period. Does he enjoy the running? Does he enjoy orchestra? Is he just doing these things because he has to? Are there other things, in or outside of school, that he enjoys?</p>
<p>These years are valuable for the chance they offer to explore genuine interests. The irony is that I honestly believe that the kids who pursue authentic interests do better with college admissions in the end, but that is not a promise.</p>
<p>Thank you both for your response. I am not gearing it towards college. As a parent, I worry about him coming late from school, tired after practice and stay up until the wee hours to finish his homework and study for tests. That’s my only concern. Right now, he enjoys Cross country and Violin. I was just asking the advice of experienced parents in this forum. Thanks again.</p>
<p>You will find that a lot of kids in high school do both high level academics and sports, and do well at both. Yes, they stay up late…but they are teenagers, and have more energy than we do! </p>
<p>I just wish our high school’s classes had not started so early in the morning (“0” period for AP science labs started at 7 a.m.) because as a varsity athlete (soccer and track) he often did not get home from away games til 10:30 or so. He graduated with 9 AP classes, with 4s and 5s on all. He also played on a soccer team that travelled all over the US to tournaments and showcases. He became very good at time management and focusing when he was working, which carried over to the college environment.</p>
<p>My S did cross country and indoor and outdoor track–a 3-season varsity athlete–and was in the regional youth symphony and took private violin lessons. (The school didn’t have an orchestra, so he had to learn an additional instrument to fulfill the arts requirement.) He also took a full schedule of AP and honors classes, like boysx3’s son 8 APs with almost all 5s…actually more than full, since he doubled up in an academic area every year and only had one study hall per week, and that was used for an independent study the last two years. He had practice every day all year round until about 5, and meets once a week often lasting until 10 or 11.</p>
<p>He’s a gifted student, but he is certainly not bionic. He had plenty of time to waste on computer games as well as hanging out with friends, despite all this. He seemed to get enough sleep for him. :)</p>
<p>I think it’s good for kids to have artistic, intellectual, and physical activities in their lives. I would wait to see how he handles it before discouraging involvement in anything.</p>
<p>Oh, if he is tired and staying up late that sounds like a problem. My kids all dropped sports. I know that many say it helps with time management but I frankly didn’t see how time could be managed when there was no time That said, it was my kids’ own choice.</p>
<p>Is orchestra after school or during school? Does he also practice or have lessons?</p>
<p>Do you think he needs to choose one or the other, or drop both sports and orchestra in order to have a reasonable schedule?</p>
<p>He could also give up orchestra in school and do music privately, if you can afford it.</p>
<p>Freshman year is generally lighter on the academics than the other years, at least in our experience. If he is thinking about AP’s, I think it helps to keep those reasonable too.</p>
<p>Overall, I think that the kind of stress he is under, in terms of time and sleep, is something that needs to be changed, as you seem to know as his parent. You posted here, it seems, because of this concern.</p>
<p>Many kids burn out by the end of high school or during their first year of college. I think health and well-being are really important. From the info in the original post, though, I cannot tell what should be dropped.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>p.s. Sorry for my typo in first post…my editing doesn’t work for some reason.</p>
<p>We asked that our kids study an instrument and play in a school ensemble. In addition, we asked them to be in one sport per year…not every season…just ONE per year. DS chose tennis, DD chose swimming. One sport per year of their choice, not ours.</p>
<p>Our kids actually liked their music studies, but they understood that the parent expectation was that they would continue through high school. We felt music, and ensemble playing developed skills that were important. Plus our family is huge supporters of the arts in education.</p>
<p>If either of these things had interfered with their academic studies, we certainly would have reconsidered.</p>
<p>OP,
You have to see how your S. adjusts. Mine was in sport all thru the graduating from HS. Hd to quit in college, could not do even club. Her sport required 3 hours every day, lots of out of town meets and some middle of the wek meets. She also palyed an instrument (private lessons) which resulted in her having Music Minor at college and actually graduating from college with the Music Minor and having ball with it (easier classes than in her major). She was also in many other things.<br>
It is a very good idea to be very busy growing up. It develops time managment skills. D. continued being very busy and involved at college and it has helped her to develop personally which is a key in her future, hopefully an MD in couple of years.
She has no time whatsoever for anything in addition to academics now. She is very very happy that she let herself to be engaged and pursue all kind of interests in her life before. As a 3rd year medical student, she realiy values her time management skills and ability to connect to others (noted by many around her). Cannot develop these being in your room most of the time studying…</p>
<p>OP, what is your student passionate about? What does he enjoy, and what does he get out of his activities?</p>
<p>My sons could literally not do well in school without sports…they are very high energy and needed the physical release. </p>
<p>My youngest son (the one I referenced in #5) long ago established the habit of running three to five miles every morning before school way back in middle school. It started with his club soccer coaches wanting the players to develop endurance and not wanting to waste valuable practice time–but he found it also really helped with concentration in school. He also discovered that physical activity after school also helped him dig in to hours of homework. His club team had practice or a game six days a week; practices were 4-6:30 on weekdays without a league game, and 8-10:30 on weekends if they were not playing (very rare). The high school team practiced daily also from 4-6:30–the challenge was game days, when students were on the bus immediately after school at 3:15 to travel to the game, with the JV game at 5 and the varsity game at 7:30, and then the bus back to school. Students might try to do homework in the stands, but it’s much more fun to support your teammates!</p>
<p>He works in DC now. Every morning, he still runs. After work, he will often go for a run, and he plays on a few recreational teams as well. Then, if he needs to, he goes home and will often finish up any projects he needs to for the office.</p>
<p>I’m a little confused by what you mean when you say quits and takes on other classes. Is track a class at his school? If it’s during school hours, why is it going to make it hard for him to get the AP work done? My daughter will be doing her third year of track this spring. At her school, it’s afterschool, only about 8-10/hours a week or practice and few meets. She is not fast enough to be varsity-level (more meets), but even for those athletes it’s pretty manageable, and our kids do have to travel about 2 hours each way to many meets. Track is a big social thing at her school and she has really enjoyed having the opportunity to keep up her fitness with friends. If your son drops out, will his health suffer? </p>
<p>As a freshman, your son may not have very good study habits. A lot of kids coast through middle school and take a while to figure out study and time management in high school. His classes will get more difficult, but it’s possible he may not have to work as many extra hours as you imagine. The first thing you can do is make sure he is focused when he is working because it takes a lot longer if you are distracted by texts and online sites while you work.</p>
<p>You didn’t comment on what else your son is doing. If he has some other major commitments (science fair project, lead in school musical, job) it could become too much to continue both, but I don’t see any issue doing track and music with multiple AP classes. Also, most sophomores aren’t taking that many APs anyway. My daughter had 2 APs both freshman and sophomore year and it really wasn’t a problem. She did stay up a little later than I would have liked after track practice as a junior, but at that point her schedule included 6 AP/college classes, (including APUSH which is the highest-workload AP at her school) and two music classes. I think she was pretty happy to have 2 music classes in that schedule and I think the reserved time to exercise and see friends afterschool was important.</p>
<p>As a freshman, staying up until wee hours just doesn’t sound right to me. This really sounds like a time management issue to me. Is he planning out his work in advance? Really, he shouldn’t be studying for tests late into the night. Knowing that he’s busy/tired during the week, he should have studied on the weekend, and just do a quick review the night before. How is he using his time on the bus, can he get anything done there? What about study halls, does he have any, and is he actually working or is he goofing off? If he’s overtired that can become a vicious cycle of inefficiency.</p>
<p>Some kids thrive doing everything, others don’t. My oldest did the minimum arts requirement and no sports. His school ECs were academic team and Science Olympiad. He spent a large amount of time on his real EC which was computer programming - which eventually led to full time work in the summer and part time work during the school year. He took a full set of APs and math beyond BC Calc had excellent scores and was in the top 10 of a class of over 600. He got into top colleges and was also rejected by lots of top colleges. </p>
<p>Younger son took two orchestra courses every year (regular and honors orchestra essentially) and also had private violin lessons. He didn’t do a sport either. He had several school based ECs and a very part time business making earrings. He took almost as many APs as his brother, but was not as advanced in math. He got into excellent colleges like U of Chicago, Vassar and Tufts, but not Harvard or Brown. His grades and scores were lower than his brother so that was no surprise.</p>
<p>I think either had enough down time at home that they could have handled a sport if it wasn’t too crazy, but my oldest used that time productively in a way that I think helped him get into the schools he got into.</p>
<p>I don’t think kids should be working non stop till the wee hours, so if he really is working productively, doesn’t have an undiscovered learning issue, he may be overextended for what he can do. It’s just not that simple to predict - but I can tell you you don’t have to do both. Also for what it’s worth my kids did nearly all their volunteer hours during the summer.</p>
<p>My D ran and played in the band and orchestra. She also took honors and ap classes. This is my kid who loved her sleep (still does lol) and was never up late in high school. She was very good with her time management. Many times her teachers gave them time in class to start work which she always used and would fit in school work whenever she had a break. </p>
<p>I was visiting my niece and also my S to a lesser extend were not as good at managing their time. My niece was staying up until the wee hours of the night doing homework and wasn’t getting the grades she was capable of. One of the big differences was that our kids did their homework in our dining room or in front of the family computer. Niece was in her room with her phone and computer texting and face booking and listening to music. You do not get as much done with all of those distractions. </p>
<p>Kids can do multiple activities. But if they don’t use your time wisely then schoolwork suffers but I wouldn’t blame sports and music.</p>
<p>If your kid is an introvert and needs alone time to recharge his batteries, then doing sports, music and a heavy course load might be rough, especially if his HS equates rigor with work volume. But if he thrives on being busy and doesn’t need time alone each day, then his schedule will be doable. </p>
<p>You know your son and how much free time he needs. Just because a lot of parents on CC have kids who can thrive on 6 hours sleep a night doesn’t mean yours has to. My D couldn’t and had to make some choices. She got into college anyway.</p>
<p>Yes, the rule while in HS was to be in bed at 10pm. It is not worth it to be sleepy next day. And it does require great time management skills. They should do lots over the weekend, even if they are in out of town competition (in D’s case, those sometime were 4 -3 days long). The big projects are assigned ahead of the time, they are given ample time to finish them. There is a lot could be done even during sport practice, another skill that served D. very well even at Med. School. Given the fact that sport practice is also a very social event, there are activities during sport practice that require a participant to be not talking to others. Here you go with the very valuable time to write your next English paper in your head. Then typing it down would take only typing time, thinking is already done. Going forward, D. used this skill while at college, going over academic material while walking from class to class (given when she was alone) and even in Med. School (most medical student live close to school and walk there).<br>
And I completely agree with sport / music being helpful, having positive and not negative effect. The music minor classes in UG were great R&R for my D at college, being away from very challenging classes of her major and she even said that she believes that music has made her thinking “outside of box” so to speak in her science classes. She realized that it gave her certain advantage that she did not predict.
However, all of this should be assessed at the personal level. What is working for one may not work for another. Have to try and see.</p>
<p>@mathyone - Cross Country practice starts at 2pm and goes on until 4.30pm. If the kid is in PE, they can get off at 2.50pm. Meets are once a week on Thursdays or Saturdays. By the time they get home after a meet on Thursday, it’s already 7pm. He was up until 11pm yesterday. He likes Cross Country. I am sure he is still in the adjustment phase.</p>
<p>I want to be proactive and ask advice from other parents about how kids manage sports and other activities in addition to studies. </p>
<p>If he continues Orchestra next year, he has to take the zero period which starts at 7am. I will probably meet with his counselor and depending on his work load, we will decide.</p>
<p>My heart felt thanks to each and every one of you for sharing your experiences.</p>
<p>I think you should ask, does he love orchestra? Does he love the music, is the conductor an inspiring teacher, does he have good friends in his orchestra? If it isn’t something that’s making him happy, then why do it? For my older child, playing in her ensemble has been one of the top highlights of her entire high school years, something I know she will always remember, something that has bonded her with a whole group of kids. If it’s just OK for your son, I say drop it and don’t worry about what colleges may or may not think. My younger child, with full knowledge of how great the instrumental program is at our high school, decided that playing an instrument is ok, but not something she finds fulfilling enough to pour a lot of time into over the 7 years of middle and high school. She didn’t mind practicing, but she wasn’t about to play a minute longer than the practice sheet required. I was a little sad about this because she had a lot of talent for it, but she dropped her instrument and found other activities that are more meaningful to her. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t drop the running as lightly. That’s a health issue.</p>
<p>I did no sports when I was in HS, and knowing what I know now, I regret that.</p>
<p>Physical activity does wonders for the mental and physical capacity to handle stress. I work in a high pressure field, and it is my weekly involvement in rowing that keeps me calm and collected. What it costs me in time, it more than repays in focus, composure, and equanimity.</p>
<p>I took zero period my sophomore year of HS, in order to be able to continue taking Orchestra and also take French. It ended up being a surprisingly good decision. I thought I’d be tired that early in the morning, but I was like a sponge for French at 7am! Also, the class was smaller and more intimate than most classes at my HS, so we all got lots of personal attention. I learned at a ridiculous rate in that class. </p>
<p>“I will probably meet with his counselor and depending on his work load, we will decide.” …Consider suggesting to him what you think is best and laying out your reasoning, but letting him make the final decision. </p>
<p>Three years from now, when he is registering for college classes and activities every semester, he is going to have to know how to evaluate his own capabilities and make these choices for himself. I have forever been thankful to my parents for beginning very early on to make academic decisions more of a collaborative process in which they offered their best advice with love and sound reasoning, and I was free to choose to disregard that advice.</p>
<p>I started college 2 years early because they had taught me in the preceding years to look at myself honestly and ask “Can I handle that?” Without that preparation, I might have been too timid to try it.</p>
That said, it was my kids’ own choice.</p>