I am about to go into sophomore year of high school and I’m thinking about dropping band but I’m not so sure if I’m making the right choice. I mean I’m just thinking of doing concert season not marching season. I’m also planning on joining jazz band. I’m afraid that quitting marching season will probably look bad on college applications because so far I’ve only done it for one year and I already want to leave. Just a little bit of background, I’ve been in band for quite a while now, ever since 4th grade and I’ve played percussion, flute, and tenor saxophone up until now. I’ve always liked being in band because in middle school it was a really fun experience for me, so I considered doing it in high school as well. However, after freshman year, my experience in band wasn’t so great so I don’t have the same passion/interest in band like I used to. I’m not really into marching band anymore because it just seems time consuming for me personally (everyone has their own thoughts on marching band) and I don’t feel driven to continue doing marching band. I’d also rather use the time from marching band to pursue other things like key club, which I’ve been interested in for a while.
Don’t stick with something for the sake of “looking good” on a college application. High school is a place where you should be figuring out what you enjoy and what you don’t – it is perfectly normal to drop some activities and start or get more involved in others. If marching band didn’t turn out to be your thing, do something else (ex. key club) that you think will be more fun/interesting.
The general rule of thumb is, what will you do with the extra time? If it’s something very meaningful that you can put on your resume, then leaving is probably ok. Most kids though wind up sleeping in on a Saturday morning or partying on a Friday night instead. Otherwise I think that being in marching band, especially if it’s a good one, does a lot for your resume. Colleges like to see the stick-to-it-ness of seeing 4 years in marching band because it shows perseverance and that’s the one EC that’s easy to verify. All those band competitions, if the school placed, can go on your college apps as achievements. If you manage to be a lead or a drum major, that’s very significant.
The sort of bad thing at my kid’s school is that in order to be in marching band or jazz band or any of the performing groups is that you have to also be enrolled in concert band or a wind/string/percussion ensemble. That does take up a valuable time slot for many, since one usually only gets one or at most two electives a year and a lot of kids tend to go AP hunting or fulfilling language requirements with those electives.
I’ll give a different perspective. Colleges know that some kids do band, chorus, art etc to fulfill a school requirement but not because it is a passion. At our high school there is just band so you have to do marching and concert band. It was the same where I went to school in a different state. I loved band until high school when I found I hated marching band and band was two periods a day. There was also practice T/Th 6 to 10pm, Fridays practice or football game and weekends we had practice 9 to 5 or competitions. I only did it one year. I would have stayed in a 1 period a day concert band.
Basically band can look great to colleges but if you replace it with good classes and activities leaving band will not hurt you.