Hello, I’m a high school senior looking to apply and hopefully get into a handful of very selective schools (Northwestern, Duke, UMich, Vanderbilt, etc), and I feel like I’m really struggling this year so far (I’ve been in school since Aug. 16). I feel like I might need another free period (I have one as my last class of the day along with 5 AP Classes). My first class of the day is orchestra, and I really feel like having a first period free would help me a lot. However, I want to be able to say that I’ve been in orchestra for 8 years. I think I feel especially pressured right now because I play varsity volleyball (fall sport) and I’m trying to work on college apps while taking challenging classes. I wanted to be able to 4 years of high school orchestra (1st violin all 4 years), 4 years of high school volleyball (varsity since sophomore year), and 4 years of foreign language (Spanish, 2 years AP), but I feel like that goal is becoming less and less feasible. I’m very stressed and orchestra is just a pain every morning. I feel like I should drop it but I don’t want to risk tarnishing my college apps, especially if it seems like I’m getting lazy my senior year by dropping orchestra. Any advice?
Do you enjoy orchestra? If you dropped it, would you do anything with that time? Or would it be practice time you gain?
The other thing to keep in mind is that you have applications and volleyball now, but you won’t have those in winter/spring. Could you talk to your orchestra director about not being 1 violin for now so as to reduce the time you have to spend right now?
Also, colleges are happy if you get to the 4th level of a language…so you don’t have to take a second AP language unless that is something you want to continue with in college.
I think I’ll be staying in orchestra. I have a free period during my day and I’ve started really utilizing it. I’m not very devoted to orchestra, so the only time I spend on orchestra is during the class in the school day.
If you can stay in orchestra, do so, but if it “is just a pain every morning,” as you say, then it’s not worth the added stress. My son’s been in a local youth orchestra since he was 6 years old and only two years in HS orchestra because of course schedule conflicts. For those two years (Jr. and Sn. years) he missed, he arranged with the director so that he could participate in the concerts with just a couple of rehearsals right before each concert. He did this in order to qualify to participate in the all state.
If you’re not doing all state, just a perfunctory participation in HS orchestra isn’t going to help you much with the college application, anyway. So you decide.