Has anyone ever taken 4 or more Ap classes AND played sports?
I’m going to be a Junior and would be joining my school’s golf team.
I joined last year and I heard it’s good to consistently participate in outside activity for UC colleges so I’m thinking of continuing till senior year.
But I’m going to be taking 4 AP classes this year plus a semester of golf.
Just thinking about this gives me migraine cause I don’t know if I can pull it off.
Should I go ahead and join my golf team?
I heard the classes are HARD and would take hours to finish the homework.
I need some advice & help!
For those who went thru this already, what did you do?
Or for those who wanna give me advice, what would you do? What should I do?
So are you considering doing it because you love playing golf or because you are trying to position yourself for a scholarship which has sports as a criteria?
From the title of your post, it appears you are asking about getting a scholarship to play sports in college. However that’s not what you are asking in the body of your post. If you are not going to play golf in college, than the UC’s will view it as just another EC. Since I don’t know what other EC’s you have, or what your academic profile is, it is hard to say if dropping golf would hurt your chances at a UC. My first guess is that it will not. Only play golf if you really enjoy it-don’t do it just to look good on college apps. If you are going to try to get recruited in golf, then it is a different story and you should stick it out.
Well you were on the golf team last your so you are the one who knows how much time that part takes. If you are concerned about being able to handle 4 APs maybe you should just be taking 3.
Your title suggest scholarship potential…but your post does not. What are you really asking?
You will be taking four classes regardless. Even non AP courses take work. Golf practice doesn’t go all night…or all year. It is a spring sport where I live.
Not sure I understand why you think this will be a problem.
But I’ll add…unless you are a strong enough player to be a recruited athlete, don’t expect too much in scholarship money from the UCs for your golf playing.
I revised the title to reflect less ambiguously what is being asked in the post. Although it is interesting that for the original title “Scholarship for Sports?” we all took the word scholarship to mean money while s/he apparently meant it to mean studies/academics, which is of course a legitimate definition of the word. Although not too surprising because of the use of the word “for” which while technically still can be taken two ways: as “instead of” (which only makes sense if scholarship means academics) as opposed to a quid pro quo, it definitely hints at the latter.
This is purely anecdotal and might not apply to you at all, but I always found that when I was busiest (for me it was music and academics as opposed to sports and academics, at least in college. I did play ice hockey in high school as well) is when I did my best in school. It is tiring for sure, but when I was forced to discipline my allocation of time and not procrastinate at all, I did extremely well in all my courses. Perhaps this would be your experience as well. And you sleep great because you are so spent by the end of the day.
@fallenchemist
Thanks for telling me your story.
I was thinking the same (not procrastinating and spending my time well) but the problem is that one of the AP course I am taking is AP Calculus AB, which I heard is very vigorous and many drop out on the first day.
Also a golf match is 18 holes, which takes about 3-4 hours total. But the golf season is only 3 months (Aug~Oct) so that’s an advantage!
I’m still divided on whether to turn in the form or not. There’s still a few more days though.
I took three AP classes while I was on varsity swim. It was definitely hard, but I got creative when it came to completing my work. Free time in classes would become study periods or time to finish homework. I’d often prioritize my work based on this criteria: what classes are most important? How long will the work take? How much thought is involved? In this way, I could get a lot of my easier work (like Spanish 5/6 or AP Bio homework) done during school hours, then focus on more thought intensive assignments at home. It’s almost better to be busy all the time because you gain momentum and the work will bother you less. Overall, it’s not that hard, just stay focused and never sacrifice academics for sports. If you really need to, tell your coach that you have to go home early or something to study for any tests coming up. I’m sure they will understand.
I had 4 honors classes (same amount of work as APs) during my soccer season and it was very stressful. I would stay up late every night and would sometimes fall asleep doing homework. It takes a lot of dedication to do, but I love soccer so it was worth it for me. It depends on how passionate you are for your sport. If you love it, then dealing with 4-5 hours of sleep a day will be doable. If you kinda like it, you might not have a good time.
Majority of athletes recruited by highly academically selective colleges take 4+ APs and play sport a few hours every day, usually year round. Most sports are more physically draining than golf.
If you have doubts and do not expect to be recruited - do not do it.
It doesn’t sound like you are interested in playing this year. So don’t. It is just an EC and will not make or break your acceptance into college. If you want to do it only because it ‘looks good’, you will probably not do well at balancing golf and school as your heart won’t be in it. These are the kinds of choices students make all the time - do I have enough time to work and go to school? Do I have enough time to be president of the class? Do I have enough time to play a sport and still have a social life? Some kids can do it all, some can’t. I, personally, think sports are important and give structure to your day, plus the physical activity can release stress. My daughter did a sport and took two science and two math class, all honors or AP, her senior year. She liked the structure and her team was her social life, but that’s just it, she LIKED it, and chose it. You have to chose it for it to be right for you.
If you are interested in it (read : like it) the take it. And since it is towards the beginning of the year, you will probably have more time for homework as opposed to if it was towards the end of the year