Hey! I am a rising freshman in high school, and I am worried to death about getting into college! Typically with sports. I was wondering if I could just do winter and spring track in high school, but would that be enough to get into a good college? Of course I would also be doing community service, clubs, and things like that, but I’m just really concerned about sports! Please help me. Any advice would be great. I don’t have to worry about grades because I’m usually pretty smart when it comes to academics.
Doing things you enjoy for 3-4 years is key. If that’s sports, clubs etc then that’s great.
Most students do not do high school sports. Do what ever sport you like, whether it is swimming, tennis or ultimate frisbee. You could also do dance or mountain biking instead. If you are physically able, it is always good to engage in a physical activity, so long as you enjoy it.
Sports is just another EC, unless you have an amazing talent for a particular sport. My daughter did not engage in any sport, instead, she is a dancer. She got into a very good college. Of her friends who got into very prestigious colleges, most did not engage in any sport at any serious level, but will be attending Johns Hopkins, UCLA, UMichigan, WashU, Dartmouth, Occidental, NYU, Northwestern, Cornell, Pomona, Duke, Purdue (engineering), UIUC (engineering and CS), UChicago, USC, Middlebury, and more. Only one of her friends was accepted to a very selective college as an athlete.
All of them, though, had their interests and passions, and those were seen in their ECs, different clubs, theater, activism, art, music, and, of course, dance.
Colleges like seeing extracurricular activity because it demonstrates that you are more than what you study at school, that you are striving to become a more well-rounded person, and that you want to expand your education beyond what the school provides, especially in the field you want to study.
They also like seeing that a perspective students has perseverance and focus, and is willing to challenge themselves. That is why sports is a very popular EC, because it demonstrates these - a kid who engages in a sport 8 hours a week or more demonstrates all that. However, so does a dancer, and so does a musician. All of these require a constant improvement, and all of those are challenging at many points.
If you love track, do it. If you want to do track because your feel that you would enjoy it, do it. If you have done track throughout middle school, you should definitely continue through high school. However, doing track simply to check a box won’t help you at all - AOs are very familiar with ECs that are done to check boxes, and will not take them seriously.
You also should talk with your parents about how they expect you to pay for your education. If they haven’t paid attention to the cost of college, they might be pretty shocked… Each college and university has a Net Price Calculator on its website that will help you figure out what your cost might be.
thanks! I love doing track as a way to stay healthy, and I’ve always loved running. It’s stress reliving to know that sports are just one of the many extracurricular activities you could participate in. Thank you for informing me that colleges look at what makes you, you. I plan to do things I will enjoy, like internships, community service, clubs, and track. Thank you for letting me know it’s not all about sports and grades! I now know I need to do things that make me, me in my spare time if I want to be accepted in college for who I am!?
Surprisingly I was like you, I am now a junior in high school and trust me when I say that Freshman year was probably the most fun and a little stressful transition from junior high or middle school. I did both winter and spring track and field for my high school and coming up to round 3 in the fall 
I went to high school thinking that it would be easy to ace classes but I realized the work load was moving pretty fast especially if you’re doing honors and AP classes. Colleges do look at students who are well rounded and who also have the grades. If you put all your time and effort in grades and SAT or ACT, colleges might be asking themselves “is academics the only thing they are good at?”
I have a close friend who graduated 2 years ago from my high school and she’s in University of Maryland right now. She was the perfect high school student anyone could imagine but she was only in academics. She had an almost perfect score on the SAT (1540) she had an overall GPA of a 4.0 (4.8 weighted) and was in multiple honor societies. Perfect student right? The only thing she was missing was the extracurriculars and community service. She did no sports, no clubs in school and did the minimum community service hours. She got rejected from every Ivy League school.
As long as you hang out with the right group, keep up with your grades and the work load you have, join some clubs at school or sports and do some community service or volunteer outside of school you’ll be in perfect shape for the college admissions your senior year best of luck!