Extracurriculars

Applying to College
1

Hello, I am currently a sophomore in high school with a 4.0 gpa and a 5.92 qpa (6.0 is the highest). I am currently no. 3 in my high school ranking.

I give a lot of background about myself and my situation in the following paragraphs hahha so if you want to skip ahead to my main question first, look for QUESTION in all caps.

I aspire to study clarinet performance and probably music education in college. I plan on applying to several conservatories as well as my state school which has a great clarinet studio. However, my parents do not fully support my aspirations and would rather I go into something more “practical” such as law. I am a part of the law program at my high school and my extracurriculars are as follows:

Tri-M (a music club), mock trial, model congress (where I have won awards), model un, steering committee (where I am one of 4 officers in my grade), student government, marching band in the fall, pit orchestra in the spring, french honor society, and clarinet choir.
I also audition for, get in, and participate in all county, all state, and all other music programs available for the high school students.
Outside of school, I also take art class and spend my weekends participating in a chamber ensemble, a wind orchestra at a conservatory, and a youth symphony orchestra.
In school, I take challenging classes. I am taking 3 APs this year and doing pretty well, and I have signed up for 5-6 APs for next year (schedule not yet finalized).

Recently, I have been pretty unhappy with everything that I have to do. The things I do for my law program and law clubs piled on top of all the music things I do is a lot considering how much homework and studying I must do as well.
I have been thinking very seriously about making some changes in order to balance my workload and improve my mental health.

Mock trial takes up about 8 hours of my time each week and that’s just counting after school practice time. On the weeks where we have Saturday morning practices and competitions it’s a little more than 8 hours. I think that by quitting I can use that extra time to practice my clarinet. If I really want to get into a decent conservatory, I know that I have A LOT more practice to do and I need to be consistent and focused. I also just don’t enjoy it as much as I used to, frankly. Law is one of those things that I am interested in but would not like to go into as a profession.

QUESTION: Should I just quit mock trial?

Is it really worth it just to put it on my college app?
For reference, no matter how much my parents may disagree, I am not applying to Yale or any other ivy league.
Some schools I want to apply to (this is excluding conservatories): my state school, nyu, boston university, oberlin, barnard.
Should I just endure the next 2 years? How bad will it look if I quit?

I know I wrote a lot so thank you so much for reading and for the advice!

2

If you aren’t enjoying mock trial, quit. If you are aiming at conservatory, more time playing/practicing is a good thing.

3

No, it’s not worth it. Don’t do ECs just for the sake of college applications, do what you enjoy doing as long as it’s a meaningful activity. You have a lot of other great ECs.

4

Thank you so much for your responses. I’m glad to hear that other people agree with me when I think I should quit. It makes me feel a lot less crazy. That being said, do you think I will still have a good shot at these other schools without mock trial on my resume? I am really passionate about music but I also can’t ignore the fact that the business is incredibly competitive and there are lots of other people out there with the same dreams as me so I do still need a backup plan.

5

I quit mock trial best decision I’ve ever made it’s like a weight lifted off my shoulders. You can focus on things that you are passionate about after you quit

6

Also yes mock trial is impressive but if you want to be genuine on your application I would just quit and show them what you are really passionate about by focusing on those things. I’m also really interested in Barnard and I’m a sophomore as well. We should keep in touch if you really like that school we might be in the same class in the future.

7

You shouldn’t do ECs you don’t enjoy in order to live up to your parents’ expectations OR to get into college. You are taking a rigorous course load and it looks like you are going places with your music. That’s a basis for a very strong college application in a couple of years.

There might be an underlying current of a problem here that is larger than the question of whether or not to drop mock trial, though. You are obviously passionate about your music. Your parents want to be assured you can make a good living, good enough to support yourself and justify the expense of college. Don’t wait until spring of senior year to reconcile these two viewpoints. This is jumping the gun because you are still a sophomore, but you don’t want to get in to a fabulous music conservatory only to find that your parents aren’t going to help pay for it because they don’t support your major. Everyone can be satisfied, though, if you handle it with patience and maturity.