What I mean here is, I was wondering if anyone thinks it is possible to be able to consistently work more than 30 hours a week in college during the whole school year, i.e. not just for a month at a time but for both semesters for all four school years and still be able to get into every grad school you want? And work here means work that is for money but not related to your university or course work in any way? Working more than 30 hours a week at a factory or waiting tables or something that would not really assist in an application for law school, med school or science grad school? If someone was spending more than 30 hours a week all year long for 4 years doping something like working in a factory or waiting tables, would it be possible to do that and be able to get into every ivy league and top 5 med school, law school or science PhD program? I mean, I know we have quite a few people here who worked more than 30 hours a week college but I was wondering if that could be considered possible.
This is a really weird question; there are so many variables at play.
For one, medical school, law school, and science PhD programs are all incredibly different from one another and have vastly different expectations for their applicants. Law school, for instance, is very numbers driven (LSAT and GPA) while med school applicants are expected to have meaningful research, shadowing, and volunteering experience on top of impressive scores; so a 30+ hour work week would impact the two pretty differently.
Other variables would be what school you’re attending, what your major is, your work ethic, your professors, your health, your home life, the physical and psychological demands of your job, and sheer luck.
I think getting into every single graduate school or every top 5 school is unlikely in any scenario. Is it possible - yes. Is it likely? No. Going to school full time is a 30 - 40 hour a week exercise by itself (15 hours in class, 15-30 hours of studying, time to get to and from class, eating, etc. Putting an almost full time job on top of that will result in exhaustion and likely lower grades than you would like. Someone very driven may be able to do it, but not most people.
If you’re talking about grad school in your field, then it depends on the field. But for most subjects: no.
You need the time to study, you need the time to learn, and you need the time to research. Most good grad schools expect you to write at least one honors thesis, on top of a stellar GPA/GRE. To write the thesis, you’ll need relevant coursework, which takes time. You won’t have the time to take all the courses you need, review all the literature in your specialty, attend all the seminars you can, etc. etc.
It’s possible, but extremely unlikely. Be a full time student if your field’s in demand.
Is it possible? Perhaps. Is it likely? No.
I’m going to mainly speak from the perspective of graduate school, mostly research-based, because that’s what I know. In order to be competitive for a research-based PhD program, you need research experience. Generally, undergraduates volunteer 10-20 hours a week in their junior and senior years, although the earlier you can do this the better. You’re already in class around 10 hours a week, and let’s say that you spend 15-20 hours a week studying (conventional wisdom is that you should spend more, but let’s lowball it). That’s 25-30 hours on classwork, plus an additional 15 hours a week doing research - so 40-45 hours just on academic stuff and preparing for graduate work.
Now add 35 hours a week of work - we’re talking 75-80 hours of academic stuff and work, and that’s not even thinking about when you’re going to socialize, relax, sleep, exercise, etc. I think with that much work your grades will drop and you’ll end up having to cut back on the research, which will be detrimental to your application. Similar things probably apply for med and law school - 30+ hours a week of work will ruin your grades, and might prevent you from shadowing doctors, volunteering, and/or doing research (important for med school) or joining law-school related extracurriculars (which may be important at some law schools)
Why would you want to get into every Ivy League/top 5 program, though? You can only attend one, and you only need to go to one. Besides, you might now know this yet, but the Ivy League is not tops in every field in grad school. In my field, some of the top 10 programs are at Michigan, Minnesota, UCLA, and Berkeley, and the next tier down has Tulane and UPittsburgh. Most of the Ivies don’t even have programs in my field.
I think that around 15-20 hours a week of paid part-time work is the max that most full-time college students can handle before they get too stressed, and even that is simply a guess/average. Some students may find it difficult to handle 10, and the rare student might be able to push it to 25 or 30, but the majority will find around 15 hours a week to be the sweet spot.
“EVERY grad school”??? Probably not, it depends on where you’re applying.
But I waitressed 30ish hours a week, from Junior year in high school until I started teaching–including student teaching-- and it was absolutely do-able. Everyone I knew was working.
I also taught full time before applying to grad school, and had no trouble getting in.
You’re asking a fantastically specific question, and there’s not going to be a clear cut yes or no answer to it. Is it possible? In theory, yes…it is definitely possible, but it is also extremely improbable. However, it is also highly improbable for even full time students with internships and research experience throughout all of their undergrad to get into EVERY top grad school in their field. The fields you’ve mentioned are also quite a bit different from one another. Speaking for my own major (physics), it is almost impossible to get into a top grad school without having a considerable amount of internships or research experiences. The same is going to be true for most scientific fields. They want to see that you’ve been active in the field. In addition, a letter of recommendation from a full time researcher at a national laboratory or a big research university is going to have a much bigger impact than many other alternatives. If one never completes any internships or REUs or anything like that, they won’t be able to get that letter of recommendation.
Working that many hours per week consistently throughout your entire undergrad is going to make it much more challenging to get things done and really take the time to actually know the material. Sometimes circumstances in life require this to be the case, and it may be unavoidable. I’ve worked at least 15-20 hours a week throughout most of my undergrad. This semester I’m working about 22 hours a week. I’m a work-study in the tutoring lab at my school though, so my job is a lot more relevant to being a physics/math double major like myself. Working 22 hours this semester has made things a little bit more rough. I don’t have as much time to spend studying, and I don’t really have much in the way of free time these days.
Yes. I did it.
However, you only need to get into 1 grad school.
And I wouldn’t recommend it if you can avoid it.