Hey everyone. So I have 60 hours a week listed on the commonapp for activities, and the thing is that it isn’t a lie. Extracurriculars are my life. Now keep in mind, everything adds up to 60, but since I have 3 varsity sports (3 different seasons) it is only about 45 hours per week of activities at one time. This includes, during the winter, 20 hours per week at sports (I have 6 hour practices on both Saturday and Sunday (yes, straight productive training the entire time [I am a junior Olympian in this sport so it requires this amount of training]), with just over an hour long practices on weekdays). I also go straight to my job, after training, for 5 hours on Saturdays and Sundays. So we are at 30 hours per week total already. Then, between clubs and volunteering, I do 15 hours a week on the weekdays Mon-Fri which is a completely reasonable 3 hours a day, after sports. Now we are at 45 hours. I see other posts of people asking if 20 something hours a week sounds like an exaggeration, I am here to tell you that 20 hours is not unreasonable at all, and also to ask if colleges will think that I am exaggerating with my list of activities and hours spent even though I am being 100% honest. School gets out at 2:40 so this leaves an hour for sports, three hours a day for clubs and volunteering (just on weekdays), and an hour for dinner puts us at 8 o’clock. I added that last sentence to prove that with my 45+ hours a week of activities outside of school, and 35 hours a week in school, I still have time to do homework for my 8 AP classes each year for grades 10,11, and 12. I work on homework from about 8:30 to 12:30 each night and wake up in the mornings around 6 oclock to finish any homework I didn’t have time to do before I fell asleep (which often happens because of how tired I am at the end of each day), before school starts. (And yes, I realize this schedule doesn’t leave any time for studying SAT and a few other things you guys on CC do, but that is simply because I don’t do those things).
Interesting, I did not write that in italics…
That’s… honestly incredible! I can barely keep up with my 3 extracurricular clubs!
Your level of extracurricular involvement is incredible. However, I am honestly more amazed by the fact that your post shows up in italics, even though you apparently did not write in italics.
You’re suffering from overachiever syndrome.
(8 Ap’s? COME ON. Just a reminder: top schools only expect 4-8 TOTAL over your entire high school career; They’d much rather have you select them carefully and build a coherent schedule, than use the “everything but the kitchen sink” approach. Or, as Stanford succinctly put it, “it’s not a game of who has the most APs wins.”
If you list the AP’s you’ve already taken and he ones you’re currently taken, I can probably tell you which ones you would be able to cut without endangering your application to colleges, and thus you’d get some sleep.)
Will adcoms think you’re lying? No, especially since this all should be reflected in your recommendation letters and everything would likely be documented through occasional school newspaper articles, and you probably could explain that schedule in the “addtional information” box.
Will they think oh WOW this kid is cutting on needed sleep to do all this? No. They’ll wonder whether you’ll crash and burn in college from taking too many AP’s and doing so much. They’ll like that you structured your time well, but they’ll wonder what makes you push yourself at such an insane rate.
What’s your SAT/ACT score?
That’s crazy. Just wondering, do you have all As? Your schedule is very similar to mine except I’m doing 41 hr/week and am in 6 APs(my school doesn’t offer any more), and I have all As and will probably be Val but have pulled so many all nighters to do this that I don’t even want to think about it.
Like you’re honestly just better than me or have much easier APs if you have all As in 8 PER YEAR. You’re like my life goals if I understand it correctly.