<p>I was talking to my friend today and we usually are on the varsity swimming team at our school. But this year she said she's not joining because it's very unlikely she'll become the captain and she doesn't want to do any EC's unless she can get a leadership position in them and she wants to study more b/c it's junior year.</p>
<p>I really do enjoy swimming but I do want to impress college admins and is it useless to stay on the team if I don't get a leadership position? It really is pretty time consuming: 4 hours in the afternoon 4 days a week. Plus a morning practice which pretty much drains me of energy for the rest of that school day. Is it really worth it to stay on the team? Or is my friend just... psychotic about college??</p>
<p>It’s worth it to stay on the team if you enjoy what you’re doing. It’s not worth it to stay to impress colleges as unless you’re good enough to be a recruited athlete, colleges aren’t going to care, and you’d be better off spending your free time diving into an EC that you enjoy and would be willing to work hard at.</p>
<p>If you really enjoy swimming (I’m a swimmer too), then you should definitely do it. Don’t quit a sport you love because somehow you think not having an “official leadership position” will hurt your college chances.</p>
<p>Your friend is being stupid. There’s no reason to quit a varsity team when you’ve worked that hard to get there. Colleges realized that only ONE person can be captain, and that selection of a captain can be very subjective and unfair.</p>
<p>I think both arguments have valid points and I really think it’s up to the person to make the decision. Because frankly, doing a sport takes a lot of time. And it does detract a bit from schoolwork.</p>
And the most selective colleges are deluged with apps and have to somehow pick between all the kids. While you don’t necessarily have to be captain, you do have to make a mark to stand out. This means if not captain then winning regional if not state awards. At the most selective schools they really ARE that picky. Think about it; the valedictorian at your HS is probably a pretty impressive person. At most schools not only did they earn the best grades but they often play sports or have leadership positions. And yet schools like Harvard reject most valedictorians that apply!</p>
<p>So if schools outside of those most in demand are the intended schools then staying on the swim team or leaving doesn’t really matter (although I am a bit apprehensive about an activity which the OP says has “a morning practice which pretty much drains me of energy for the rest of that school day”)</p>
<p>I’m aiming for the selective colleges but I’ve received an award that I guess should be counted as regional (I go to a private school and there’s this athletic association of independent schools in NYC and I got the All-Star Award, which is the only award that recognizes achievement, the others just recognize devotion or effort). But one person can only receive that award once in their time in the team so I can’t get it again.</p>
<p>^if you got the award, it shows you’re good at what you do. why would you want to give it up?</p>
<p>personally i think i made the mistake throughout high school of focusing on activities where i thought i’d get a leadership position and not pursuing in those where it would be unlikely that i’d get a position, even if i cared about them. haha it ended up coming back to get me. </p>
<p>the main club (a really academic one) that i had devoted myself to since freshmen year and had ultimately imagined becoming president of in my senior year got a lot of new, super-competitive members throughout the years. i had joined this club originally b/c i believed i could become president, i knew i had no chance of winning awards at all our competitions, but i stayed as a member because i lusted after the leadership positions and believed i’d have an easy win. i lost in the elections because of all the backstabbing competition, and now i realize that after 3 years, i have nothing to show for my involvement with the club. </p>
<p>on the other hand, i gave up my chance to participate in many other clubs that i sincerely cared about as a person, like philosophy club or a save darfur club, because i thought they wouldn’t get score me points in the admissions process if i couldn’t become an officer. plus i had no time for them because i was focused on that other, more academic club that i now have nothing to show for. </p>
<p>i bet if i’d pursued something i was truly passionate about without being concerned for how it would look on my resume, i would have naturally ended up with having more to show for it. who cares about titles?? it’s what you DO that matters most, not what you ARE (cliche, but very true, raising $1000 for a local nonprofit cause probably looks a lot better than being “president” of a club where you did nothing.)</p>
<p>i’ve learned my lesson a bit too late, but you’re a junior. the best way to “look good” on a college app is to stick with things you care about.</p>
<p>hannahmontana is exactly right. Not only does doing ECs that you love mean you’re more likely to get offices, win awards, organize projects that make an impact (all are things that impress colleges), but you’re likely to develop skills and experiences that influence your choice of careers, majors and hobbies for the rest of your life.</p>
<p>This is a legitimate question, not advice. Don’t you think that admissions officers know that if a person makes the high school varsity swim team, they have probably been in that pool early early in the morning 5 or 6 days a week since they were little? Shouldn’t they be more impressed by the years of dedication it takes to do that (even if not captain) than, for example, getting yourself elected as president of the French Club?</p>
<p>Even if you want to be cynical and decide you want to do what is best for getting into college, remember: colleges want to look at your application and see a distinct picture of who you are. You need to present a consistent package. Your athletic award and your participation in varsity swimming is an important part of that. Your recommendation letters may also cite those aspects about you. If you drop swimming now it will be inconsistent with that package. And anyway, what exactly is a “leadership” position in a sport like swimming?</p>
<p>While colleges want to see who you are, if swimming doesn’t interest you any more then there’s no advantage to staying on the team. Getting off the team may give you the chance to get very involved in another activity, and to even as a senior have experiences that are impressive to colleges.</p>
<p>Colleges know that students and people in general change, so colleges aren’t expecting that students will do exactly the same activities throughout high school.</p>
<p>My S’s most impressive activity was a new activity that he got involved in summer before his senior year. He took to it like a duck to water, and ended up winning a county award for his work with it, and learning lots of skills that have been useful in his summer jobs as well as his college ECs.</p>
<p>If he had stayed with activities that he’d tried in previous years – things like academic teams – he wouldn’t have had a chance to develop the skills that literally have changed his life.</p>
<p>Hmmm…this is all making sense to me now…in some of the sports at my kids’ HS, the seniors rotate the “captain” position from game to game. I guess then they all can say they were captain of the team! In some sports with small teams, all of the senior will be co-captains.</p>
<p>So by quitting swimming because you’re not captain, you’re accomplishing something? What makes you think that you’ll be able to join another EC and immediately jump into a leadership position? And what about all the time you put into that sport? Down the drain. “Varsity Swim 9, 10, 11, 12” is a helluva lot more impressive than “Varsity Swim 9, 10.” Besides, quitting any EC for the sake of studying is a terrible idea unless your grades are really, really suffering. Everyone at the top tier has the grades. </p>
<p>And thanks for putting “(sic)” when you quoted me. God forbid you make anyone think you made a single grammatical error.</p>
<p>Ok, I think that what everyone is saying is perfectly logical, but i’ve been through this situation and would like to speak from that point of view.
I’ve played lacrosse since I was 8 and, come highschool, was able to play varsity during freshman and sophomore year (at a MD state champion school). During these years, I got B’s in almost all my classes and was constantly exhausted from the 4 hours of brutality each day. I decided that I couldn’t take it anymore when Junior year came. Instead of practicing, I joined one club that I was interested in for each day of the week. This year, I’m an officer in seven clubs and have had a 4.0 GPA in 10 AP classes over the past 2 years. I also had time to develop a passion for reading (I practically never read during the lax years) and science. I’m not going to tell you that quitting sports is a good thing, but In my situation, I wouldn’t be able to apply to top colleges if it hadn’t happened.</p>