I’m a sophomore in hs, and I’ve been playing soccer since elementary school.
I never was really good at soccer, but I enjoyed it somewhat, so I’ve continued it.
For reasons, I do not want to continue soccer from this year and I think I will be able to focus more on things I love much more, such as CS or math.
Would playing soccer since elementary to end of hs be an extremely good thing to say for college apps?
Is doing a sport crucial to getting into a good college? (ie. cmu)?
If you are not a recruited athlete, sports is just another EC - no better and no worse than any other. If you want to drop soccer and replace it with another EC, go for it.
If you don’t love to play soccer anymore, and want to get into Carnegie Mellon, then by all means pursue CS or math. Then, enter some math competitions and see if you place well.
@skieurope @givemethtcheese thanks for the fast responses…
Are there any specific EC’s that would ‘make up’ for not playing any sport?
Which math competitions are best?
Math Competitions: AMC/AIME
Mu Alpha Theta
Any EC that you are interested in will be better than playing soccer (since you don’t like it).
If at all possible, please check out FIRST Robotics. There are plenty of fun, interesting and useful things for an engineer/CS to do. Furthermore, it is just a phenomenally good cause. If you can advance to some of the regional competitions is has all the teamwork and character-building benefits of sports plus it better highlights your areas of interest. You will have a really good story to tell on your college application.
If you think you like math and CS you will get to mingle with mentors and adult supervisors already working in those careers so it will give you a taste of what it’s like to work on a project team in business. There are a variety of roles needed on every team, so you should be able to find things that interest you.
I was gobsmacked by how cool it was when I saw a competition. Please look into it. You won’t regret it.
The Neal Bascomb book “The New Cool” follows one team through a season. It’s an interesting starting point.
Good luck!
“How important are sports”
Anyways, colleges don’t care if you have been playing it since you were 3 years old. You already said that you are not good at it so colleges will only see it as an EC.
I don’t think that fact will be completely ignored, it’s just that it’s no different than any other activity someone might do since they were 3 years old.