I have a friend who is only doing debate… She is in California and has won a few trophies, Octofinalist in Lincoln-Douglas in the California Invitational and Quarter-Finalist in Public Forum in a tiny open invitational. Her team did badly in the National Qualifier.
I am also in LD, however, I get nervous easily and did poorly this year. I’m also co-Secretary of our school’s National Art Honor Society. I plan on joining DECA next year because I am taking Fashion Marketing, KEY Club, and doing some volunteer work over the summer. I also am considering hosting an independent charity event with no endorsement from a bigger organization, and maybe finding a way to do some charity work for NAHS over summer break. I intend to try and improve a lot over the summer in debate, and plan on trying for NHS as a junior and senior, and joining ACE (or an easier subtype called MACC). My parents (and I, to an extent) want me to get a job over the summer to make money for tuition.
I want to cut down on my extracurriculars, however I don’t know how. I want to do KEY Club and DECA (both sound fun), however if I choose to not do DECA I will likely switch out of Fashion Marketing, even though I know I will enjoy it, in favor of another class I like a bit less but is more rigorous. I fully intend on doing debate and NAHS all four years of high school. I really want to be in NHS, so I refuse to try not attempt to get in. KEY Club I also want to do, but with limited involvement, alternately join Beta Club. DECA and ACE I know are impressive on college apps if you do well, and while I want to do them, I’m worried I won’t have the time to focus on my other activities.
Do you think I should cut DECA and ACE? Should I not do KEY Club or Beta Club? I plan on taking AP Euro as a sophomore,so I’m worried about my workload. Do you think I should try and make NAHS a summer thing as well?
Additionally, if I were to do well in debate and other activities (make it to third in States in debate, do well at internationals in DECA, successfully do charity events for NAHS over the summer, maintain straight A’s, etc), would it look better than devoting all my time to one thing and doing better than I would doing all those different things? Like placing first in States in debate or something like that?
Only looking at right now, and taking into consideration that my friends’ school is an all-girls Catholic college prep (one of the top in California, I think), while I am at a respectable public high school that typically sends 3-4 to Ivy’s, most often Yale, (plus a few more non-Ivy’s like MIT and Stanford, Rice, Amherst, UVA, John Hopkin’s), and assuming that our college essays and recommendations were similar enough to not be a deciding factor (implausible, I know), which would you prefer, especially knowing my plans to try and get NAHS to work during the summer and improve my debating skills? Just one, or 3 major ones and 2 with minor involvement? What about just 1 extracurricular vs. 2?