<p>what do your 8th grader do for extra-curriculum activities? or what do you do? i have an 14 years old and i'm very frustrated with him because he is only interested in sports! every days after school he is playing basketball,football or goes to the gym.. during the wk no change.. friday night to sunday night : sports!!!! that's it! i'm very worry for high school... he will be ask what are your interests , what do you do for extra activities? and he is only going to say : sports! i think it's not enough to reach a good college. what do you think? and what others 8th graders do after school and during wk? thanks for your answers.</p>
<p>this is fine if he is passionate about sports, don’t try to push him into something he’s not but rather let him enjoy doing what he loves</p>
<p>one thing you could do is try to spur and interest in him by explaining it might be beneficial for him to take on some academic ec’s if he has a goal of attending a good college just incase he doesn’t understand this like many freshman/sophomores don’t at the time</p>
<p>Okay. Your kid is in 8th grade! Let him live his life! If he’s passionate about sports let him do it. He could end up getting a sports scholarship and also easier admission since sports would be his hook. Yeah, he should take on some academic extracurriculars, like maybe some school clubs, but I wouldn’t worry about it to much. Especially for eigth grade, colleges usually don’t even look at freshman year!</p>
<p>Relax! Let your kid have some fun! (and this is coming from the website where the kids are biased to doing more academic extracurriculars)</p>
<p>They aren’t necessary but starting early is great if you plan on trying to excel in a sport, music, etc. Sports aren’t a bad thing, and playing a wide variety at a young age generally helps develop the athleticism required for being better later on. Hopefully he can choose one particular sport he really likes and try to excel at it.</p>
<p>Um… wow. Ok, so in 8th grade I played sports year round. That is ALL I did. I also ended up playing varsity my freshman year. I hated it and ended up quitting after freshmen year and at my high school I found many, many more interests and eventually developed a huge passion for theater and animal rights. Yes, that’s right, NO academic ECs and yet I still managed to make it into one of the universities in America (although I chose not to attend). Let your kid do what he wants to do and quit being so pushy. He is only 14 and has plenty of time to explore interests. </p>
<p>And if sports is all he wants to do then so be it! I know a girl who ONLY did sports in high school and is now playing softball at Princeton.</p>
<p>I do not remember any school activities offered in middle-school other than band. Sports were done during gym period only or outside sports organizations. High school is where they become more involved with after school activities and late buses.</p>
<p>I say the following in the most emphatic way possible: Admissions officers are specifically looking for what can this applicant bring to said school, if the kid has no passion for an EC he is hypothecially VERY likely to drop it the minute he arrives at college if not sooner and admissions officers can smell passionlessness from a mile away.</p>
<p>^ Yank, why the heck should he have to narrow it down to ONE sport? There are simply people who are passionate about sports in general. I played softball and baseball since age 4, basketball since 9, volleyball since 10, and swimming since 10. Why should someone have to give up any sports? How is playing more than one sport a sign of no passion? Do you play sports at ALL? Because if so, you’d realize that to keep up the kind of physical condition required to play more than one sports requires an ENORMOUS amount of passion. People may join clubs to pad their apps, but most people would not play year round sports just to look good to admissions people. It takes WAY too much time and energy that could be better spent doing other ECs which aren’t as physically demanding. Jeeze.</p>
<p>Just…wow. OP, do you know how many parents would kill to have a child in this day and age that wanted to spend their time outside doing something healthy, me included. No more Warcraft or Facebook. Feel lucky, college is a long ways off.</p>
<p>Romanigypsyeyes, I meant to delete that line, I was at first thinking in terms of sports schloarships and then decided to change tack and rant about passion…</p>
<p>Ok… but without that line, it has pretty much nothing to do with the OP’s post. The kid IS passionate, he’s just passionate about sports. Nothing wrong with that.</p>
<p>^ I know, that was my point!!!</p>
<p>The OP said “he will be ask what are your interests, what do you do for extra activities? and he is only going to say : sports! i think it’s not enough to reach a good college.” My point is that forcing him to do things other than that which he is passionate about in the name of reaching a good college is stupid.</p>