<p>I wrestle for my high school and practice goes for about 3+ hours a day and there are always multi-meets on saturdays that usually go from 7 in the morning to 6 or 7 at night. If I am taking 3 APS this year, will I kill myself or is it possible? and would colleges take notice that i have to dedicate myself to something really demanding like wrestling while taking APS?</p>
<p>I think colleges will see your wrestling as a dedication thing. If you can manage to pull off wrestling and APs, it’ll be a strong extracurricular, especially if you talk about it in essays… on you’re other question… sure it’s possible, but it’ll be a lot of work and you’ll be exhausted.</p>
<p>Im not planning on writing it into my essay because my tutor says its too cliche. do you think their are other ways to highlight this? because wrestling required so much of my time and it sort of gave me a disadvantage cause my peers would have all the time they needed</p>
<p>make note of it in your EC’s with approx hours per week</p>
<p>The high volume EC + APs are self explanatory. Thinking of yourself as disadvantaged because your peers had more time? This is the death of a good EC, when the students starts to think they are the ONLY one with heavy hours.<br>
There are students that work part time and care for younger siblings. Students that swim before and after school (depending on where you go to school, this means the pool at 4am in February). Depending on your school your Model UN can be very involved, Science Olympiad, any number of activities.
Wrestling does not have a corner on the market. With this thought process, I would agree with your tutor, find something else to write about in your essay…and open your eyes, your peers (or at least your peers in admissions) have been kicking butt too.</p>
<p>I took three APs last year with around 4 hours of cross country and water polo aug-nov, 5ish hours of water polo nov-(late)march, and 3 hours of swimming april-june. i ended up doing fine but it was a ****load of work and it really was hard.</p>
<p>My son was a nationally ranked athlete and took 13 APs over the course of high school. I don’t think he slept more than 4 hours a night for years, weekends were spent studying and playing tournaments, and he had zero free time. That being said, he did very well come decision time for colleges. He also received the same advice about not mentioning his sport in his essays but he went against it and did just fine. He decided that he wanted to be himself in his essays. His sport and his academics were his focus and passion throughout high school. To not talk about them would be leaving out a chunk of who he is. As for me, I feel it depends on the student. There are students who participate in sports, and then there are students whose sport is a major part of their life. That was my son. I never read any of his essays. He did the whole application process on his own without any help. I know that he talked about how participation in his sport helped him learn about dedication and sacrifice among other things. It worked for him. In my opinion, you should be true to yourself and write about what is important and meaningful to you, not just what you think an admissions rep wants to hear. Good luck.</p>
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<p>Agreed. Many students–debaters, writers, science geeks–spend similar amounts of time on their activities. So while your athletic accomplishments will be duly noted, it’s important to remember that you’re not necessarily any busier than other students.</p>
<p>As for whether or not the APs will kill you, it’s hard to say. Which APs are you taking? The hard sciences will, generally, involve much more time than electives like Psych, Stats, Environmental, Human Geo. And rigor of APs varies by school and by teacher–do you research and figure out what kind of courseload you’re looking at given the specifics of your school. Then decide whether you’re willing to sacrifice sleep and what little free time you have for the rigor of your curriculum.</p>
<p>^^^ That’s good advice regarding the APs. My son sacrificed much for an extremely rigorous curriculum, and it didn’t matter that he had less time then others. He still had to do well in those courses. It’s not easy and it’s not for everyone. Think long and hard about which classes you want to take because being busy is not an excuse to not do well.</p>
<p>I pulled 3 Ap’s (gov, eng lang, calc bc) along with football, it was a lot of work but manageable. Just keep track of your time, it can be done.</p>
<p>Yeah sports, debates teams, model UNs, service: theyre might be different but they probably do have the same levels of dedication for the people that participate in them. As for APS: Im taking Bio, Calc AB and MEH…i decided not to take BC because i didnt want to make a huge sacrifice for just one class.</p>
<p>how do you guys motivate yourselfs to do the work and everything? It seems last winter of junior year I struggled with keeping up with studying and going to wrestling practices</p>
<p>btw thanks a lot people</p>
<p>Something that takes THAT much time is an activity you have to LOVE or you can’t do it. It helps if you are surrounded by other students who are also taking similar class loads. It also helps if you choose your APs very wisely. Do not go for Calc BC because you think the e-schools demand that. If you get a C in the class…not so good. You are better off taking Calc AB and taking the B+ (probably with a lighter homework load). If you have been on the AP path in foreign language but it doesn’t come easy, is it worth the time in HW? This is the time for time-management.</p>
<p>There ARE some kids who pull 2 varsity sports, honor societies, and 5-6 APs a year. That isn’t everyone. We went through these decisions with my son. His EC is very time intensive. His goal is engineering. He has concentrated on math, science, and english.</p>
<p>When we saw his foreign language teacher at the beginning of his Jr year she asked why he had dropped the AP track, he was one of her best students. We explained he had taking the harder math track…“Oh, I understand.”. We said he was taking AP Chem (killer class here) “Ewwww, gotcha.”. We reminded her about his EC that was demandeding “Nuff said, I’d have made the same decision!!”. He could have done the AP class without a problem, however the additional homework was a consideration he had to make when choosing his other classes. During admissions he will see if the change from the foreign language AP to college prep will hurt him.</p>
<p>You have to look at what your goal is, what your intended field of study is, and place your efforts there. I would also make sure the AP classes you choose are worth their weight. Not all are equal in admissions. Take the ones that are going to get you the most mileage.</p>
<p>Lastly I will say that if you are having trouble in a class do not wait for it to get better, it will not. Effort spent trying to understand something without assistance will be greater than had you gone for help. I know you said you train 3+/- hrs/day after school. Some teachers are willing to see you for 20min before class to explain something you just aren’t getting. If this doesn’t work, and I know this isn’t popular, go to your coach and say you need to see a teacher for help after school. One of the reasons you wrestle is to have an EC that shows a heavy time commitment. This means less if you don’t have the GPA to back it up. Your coach may be reluctant, but if it’s not often, you only miss the first 30-60min of practice, then it’s reasonable. You may need a note from your teacher confirming you were there and the help was needed.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>^There’s some really phenomenal advice above.</p>
<p>Some gems:</p>
<p><em>It helps if you are surrounded by other students who are also taking similar class loads.
</em>You have to look at what your goal is, what your intended field of study is, and place your efforts there. </p>
<p>aka, don’t take every AP possible because you are capable of it. Take classes related to your future major/area of study, and only take other ones if you are genuinely interested in them, naturally grasp the subject material, and are capable of the workload.</p>
<p>*I would also make sure the AP classes you choose are worth their weight. Not all are equal in admissions. Take the ones that are going to get you the most mileage.</p>
<p>There are certain classes, like the “lite” electives I mentioned earlier, that don’t mean much to adcoms. But if your school is anything like mine, some of those classes are “silent killers” that require huge time commitments, involve lots of memorizing, etc. Don’t take those classes. I don’t care about your interest in the subject; when you need to shave off as much stress as possible, you can’t have electives draining your energy.</p>
<p>***This means less if you don’t have the GPA to back it up. **</p>
<p>*And, advice of my own: Do as much work as possible during the school day. This can be during a study hall or during the class it was assigned (but try to avoid doing it during other classes, or you won’t be able to absorb the material being taught). You need to learn as much as possible during the confines of the school day to minimize the work/studying you need to do at home. This means you should learn some efficient note-taking techniques (I’m a sucker for Study Hacks - Decoding Patterns of Success - Cal Newport) and start taking notecards to class for facts you need to memorize. You can study anytime there’s a dull moment.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for the advice iguanna and chic. My classes are based on an engineer’s itinerary: AP Bio, Physics 41, Calc, and english and ap meh to round me out. But my friends tell me that my physics teacher is not the greatest: he misses a lot of days of school (they tell me he is usually out once or twice every two weeks) and he doesnt know the material he’s teaching (he was a foot doctor before taking the job). I dont know if I can teach myself physics, so if the class doesnt work out for me, should I drop and shave off some stress? Or should i keep it because its the only physics class i have taken and my goal is engineering?</p>
<p>If at all possible I would stick with the Physics, although you are taking AP Bio so you do have a Science covered for your Sr year. Since it’s not AP Physics I don’t think you will find yourself underwater much. Different students react to teachers differently. Meet the teacher, see what you can get from them, what you can get from the textbook, and determine if you need outside sources. This is a method that will serve you well in college. If your prof isn’t the greatest, you simply have to find a way to learn the information elsewhere. You may find, depending on your engineering training up to this point, Physics makes a lot of sense to you. Do you know any students that just graduated who took the same engineering path you did that also took the Physics class? Perhaps contacting them would be a good idea. Ask how they felt about the class, what they did to succeed?</p>
<p>If you dropped it, what would you put in it’s place? You need to make sure you do not give the appearance you are slacking off your Sr. year. I am not saying you are by any means. I am saying that if you make a change in schedule, pick the replacement class carefully.</p>