<p>OK, i just read this article in the newspaper about graduating seniors who did over 1000 community service hours, had really high GPA's, were at the top of their class, and admitted to the top colleges. What I want to know/ask is: Do these people have social lives? I also see a lot of the time people here on CC that do tons of EC's, sports, and AP's...so how do those people (or you guys) get sleep, be social, etc? Or are those just foreign concepts? LOL</p>
<p>sleep? what is this sleep? and friends? what is this you call friends?</p>
<p>Sleep? Not as much as we should. But it does exist really!
Friends? Loads, because they are all the people involved in the same activities and classes as we are (for example my delegation on MUN trips, band/choir people, field hockey team). Also lots of group study and sometimes themed parties (this year it was Communism/politics... there were even dictatortots as food!). Hanging out with your friends doesn't have to mean sitting around.</p>
<p>i still have time to go to movies and i play sports. so i'm friends with my teammates. we're tight</p>
<p>themed parties ?? dictatortots?? thats cute</p>
<p>i cant comment about the really high gpa (seeing as i dont have one)
but i can comment about the volunteer work and clubs. I've met alot of awesome people while doing volunteer work and doing things like mathletes. even girls.</p>
<p>Most of my Ds community service hours are very social. Many are group activities like car washes, working school events, environmental monitoring (hiking along streams and rivers with friends), beach/river/road cleanup etc. Most of her friends are in the same service clubs so it works out that way. I guess it depends on your definition of "social life" and whether your friends are also service oriented, but you can integrate social and service very easily.</p>
<p>well my friends think cs is a waste of time, they are most likely to drop out of school next year, they don't really care about school</p>
<p>so I did feel a bit left out in the start when they would hang out together straight after school when I had sports and stuff :(
But now, it's all good because they know how important this is to me so they come over usually at 8 to hang out in the weekdays and I leave out Friday night for socialising and Saturday for relaxing.</p>
<p>People in my sports teams are ok and friendly.. made quite good friends. But people in clubs such as SADD and interact are just plain weird. And I prefer not to mingle with them because they all have the same sense of strange humor and I don't feel comfortable around them.. </p>
<p>what I do to get into college....</p>
<p>Yeah, all my friends are in the same activities as me so i socialize with them at various activites, and in class. And i manage to find time to do leaisurely activities... Whoo, gonna see "Howl's Moving Castle" tonight!</p>
<p>As a person who is a speech and debate nerd with a moderately decent GPA and all (though most of my fellow speech and debate devotees are moderately stronger in GPA...) I think we manage. You'd be surprised how far it goes (where I come from, we have a lot of less than hardworking Asian kids - 65% of the student body - who do manage, though often not as well) to actually do your AP USHistory homework the day it's assigned rather than waiting for the tutorial period the day it's due to copy it off someone else... And doing what you love - we've spent hours and hours on speech and debate, and entire weekends and counted that among our best experiences with each other - and won things worthy of recognition by schools, if that's what one is looking for. </p>
<p>The people I know outside of speech and debate who manage thousands of hours of community service - they're just the types who stick with a commitment of a certain number of hours week after week even if it's hard for them... Socializing does happen in both these types of activities though - you meet the most genuinely interesting people, and as someone with less than stellar school spirit, I prefer people from far away that I meet at speech and debate events to 80% of my school classmates.</p>
<p>I did not, however, like the people I met on our one MUN conference this year - a major contrast to the people (mostly not high school students) I meet at Amnesty International area meetings.</p>
<p>I suppose it would depend on your definition of "social life." I know that I'm usually very busy during the school year (haven't started volunteering anywhere yet because I've been too young. Will start that in the fall so my schedule will be even more crazy) and I'm not able to go out with my friends from school a lot. But, I'm perfectly happy with it because I get to spend time with my other friends from my extracurriculars (debate, dance, music, etc.). </p>
<p>On the other hand, I know that some people in my school think that unless you can party every weekend and get drunk, you don't have a life. I'd beg to differ.</p>
<p>cyanthis--i second the hardcore speech and debating. it's time-consuming, but definitely fun and worthwhile.
cowgirlatheart--dictatortots. wow. haha, how exactly would you make those?
swordmaiden--perhaps these people are just really good at time management.</p>
<p>We use the weekend and holidays to our advantage.</p>
<p>Now my friend spends 3 hours a day studying. She has study groups, too which is her socializing along with stuff and school and free time when we have no work. </p>
<p>I just read over my notes whenever I feel like it. I have plenty of time to do whatever. Its just what you choose to do and how you use your time.</p>
<p>It does get tiring doing nothing be school all the time. That's why you need to not be like my friend and play some videogames or something.</p>
<p>IMHO 2000 hours of community service is a blatant lie. Do you guys know what that means if you do that in a year or so? That means you spent a fourth of every minute PRECISELY in your place of work. We're talking sleep as well. Let's say these people had 6 hours of sleep on AVERAGE (THIS IS VERY LOW, JUST BARELY LIVEABLE).
Total hours in a year: 8760
Hours gone to sleep: 2190
Hours gone to school: 180 (days)x 6 hours 1080
Hours gone to studying: 2 hours a day for 180 days and so on..... commute and all. Also you can legally only work 8 hours MAX as a minor, one hour including lunch. So you really can't get 2000 hours ;)</p>
<p>who said they had 2000 hours?</p>
<p>I bet some people have had 2000 hours, but it was not in one year. It was probably in 4 years, which comes to 500 per year. That is 10 hours per week, which, although a lot, is not impossible.</p>
<p>And yes, sleep suffers but social life does not. School is social. Work is social. Volunteering is social.</p>