<p>I sometimes feel that there's never enough time.</p>
<p>I want to know about the "average" day of hard working students; maybe the "average" week (I dunno.)</p>
<p>What is your day like? What do you do? Do you sleep? Do you have ANY free time during the week? (Please describe your schedule/routine & how you feel going about it.)</p>
<p>I can say a few words about my son because he won’t spend his time posting or even reading CC. He has always been pretty busy, but he mostly did what he wanted to do and enjoyed doing. We tried to make sure he would go to bed by midnight, although it wasn’t always possible. We also made sure he ate healthy/balanced/nutritious diet. Being short on volunteering, he compensated in academics by taking the most challenging coursework in his school, including AP and dual enrollment course at a local public university. ECs also took a good chunk of his time. However, he still had play time with friends, once a week on average, more so during school breaks. Some ECs, like robotics and various competitions, also meant fun time with friends. He doesn’t care about Ivies, he just wants to continue doing what he likes most.</p>
<p>Here is my advice. If you are very smart and enjoy learning and challenging yourself then go for academics. If studying is hard for you, choose courses in which you can do well without killing yourself. Find something you are good at and enjoy doing and invest a lot of time in this activity. If this is sport, develop your ability to the best you can. If this is volunteering, make it as meaningful as possible. Be creative and take advantage of opportunities. Don’t just count hours.
Make sure you get enough sleep and eat well. Your brain and body are still developing and you future health depends on what you are doing now. Being healthy is more important than getting in the most selective colleges. You can get great education at a public university, but you will never be able to restore your health once ruined.</p>
<p>My son has a pretty easy average day.</p>
<p>He takes 6 APs and has for the past few years but does only about 1 hour of homework a night. He sometimes works on homework between bus drop off and the first bell or between the last bell and start of activities but he has never had tons of work.</p>
<p>He plays in a jazz band and does afterschool clubs, drama etc. Gets home around 5 talks to me for awhile, retreats to his room to surf the web, watch youtube or whatever. Has dinner, hangs out with us or does homework or watches TV</p>
<p>He has music lessons two evenings a week. Sometimes he does things with friends. Often his physics classmates get together to work on problems and lab write ups but from what I can tell it mostly consists of ping pong and talking :D</p>
<p>That’s it. He really doesn’t seem to work that hard, but he takes very hard classes and does well and has a few activities he is involved with consistently every year. </p>
<p>He is going to UChicago.</p>
<p>I’ve had anywhere from 30 minutes to 4 hours of HW for the last couple of years in high school with ec activities pretty much everyday after school. Now as a second semester senior I’m just cruising, which is pretty nice by the way. My advice is just to go with the flow and don’t really worry to much about your schedule. Sure you’ll go to sleep late at night but if you take your experience day by day and take breaks reading or spending time reading the news/redditing you’ll get by pretty happily. Make sure you have your weekends free to a certain extent and you’ll be on your way. I’m going to Swarthmore College so I’m not sure you wanted someone like me to comment (some people only think Ivies are good schools) but I hope this helped.</p>
<p>I played soccer at a high level but that is only in the fall. I am not going to list my whole day. There is one thing to me that is very apparent: most students do work that they do not have to do to get high grades. Know each class and each teacher’s way of computing the grade. Do not waste time in anything else. Also, I am insanely organized. Not in a perfectionist sort of way, because that will work against me, but to the point where I NEVER let outside matters linger. I get all those done. I reduce the days down to the essentials. And, most importantly, I never miss getting a perfect homework grade, meaning in some classes that check for a good faith effort, I simply B.S. the whole thing, and I always study for the tests in a way where I move forward, then back, and then forward, so that I can practically see my notes or the book in my head. Sometimes I get things right simply because I know where in the book it was place relative to another thing and can create a relation using that. ALSO, I either pay hard attention in class because you have to go there anyway OR if I find the teaching is not going to help, I do my own learning while class is going on. Don’t get me wrong, school is not fun to me. Learning can be, but not school. I was accepted to Penn, Princeton, and M.I.T. and will be going to Penn in hopes of going to med school after that. I would say one thing: don’t think you need to be a superhuman to compete because I don’t know anyone who does not grind it out. Yes being smart is huge, but don’t let the rest psych you out because chances are you can do what anyone else is doing in terms of work. And if you are doing your best, then be happy. If that’s not getting into your perfect school it will eventually lead you to success relative to many people going to these selective schools. GOOD LUCK.</p>