<p>I'm wondering if I should compete in chess tournaments (not school related) on weekends throughout the school year of college (I'm a commuter student). I enjoy competing and my goal is to reach national master, but I also don't want to get distracted from studying. I'm worried that if I don't play in tournaments, I can't really list chess tournaments as a hobby if I'm only playing in tournaments over the summer. I'm also confused about how to calculate hours per week (and start/end date). I'm not sure if playing in a good amount of tournaments over the school year would show a continued interest in chess throughout college, or if the hours spent playing in chess tournaments over the summer (when I have more time) are equivalent to those throughout the school year. (If I list reaching national master as an award, then should I still even list chess tournaments as a hobby, or is it redundant to include chess in two different places?)</p>
<p>If you enjoy competing I think you should. It’s important that you have a life outside of school (both in terms of admissions success and personal satisfaction) but no amount of chess success will make up for bad grades, so if it’s getting in the way, you have to cut back.</p>
<p>I think even if you’re only competing over the summer you could still list it as an activity. I think hours/week should be the hours/week you spend on chess starting with freshman fall. I’m not really sure what to put as the start date, maybe whenever you started competing. You get 1300 characters or something like that to discuss the activity so you can mention there that you actually started as a little kid (at least I’m assuming that’s the case). This section isn’t THAT strict. It’s not like they are going to heavily investigate what you put. They are just trying to get an idea as to how much of a commitment each activity is and how much of your energy you’re devoting to it.</p>