I am currently a Sophmore at high school and have a dilemma. In freshman year, I had Choir and Rowing as my extracurricular activities. This year I cannot continue Choir due to a schedule conflict and I do not want to continue rowing since I am not good at it. Academically I am not worried, but I am afraid that if I drop sports, it will hurt my chances of going to a good college such as UCLA or Stanford. If I drop sports, I will devote my time to volunteering at hospitals, taking internships at medical clinics, and joining clubs such as robotics but I am afraid this set of EC’s are not enough to make me stand out among the other students. Is volunteering amd jobs looked down upon compared to sports? If so, should I continue sports?
Dropping both music and sports seems a bad idea if you are targeting Stanford or similar colleges.
Clubs do not compare to music or sports. Sports in particular shows a level of dedication and teamwork that is impossible to gauge for clubs (even if in actuality some clubs have that).
If you are not good at rowing, I suggest you look into other sports that might interest you.
Do sports if you like it. If you don’t enjoy rowing, then stop doing it.
Do what you like, whether its sports, volunteering, interning etc.
If you do what you enjoy, then it will not be looked down upon by college admissions officers and you will stand out.
Unless you are a recruiited athlete, Stanford and similar schools don’t care if you do a sport or music or not. They just want to see a high level of achievement in school and out. And more important that positioning yourself for top schools is figuring out what you love to do. Sometimes we try things and it turns out that we aren’t as into it as we’d hoped. Good learning experience. Move on and try something else. Lot of kids at top schools didn’t find their ‘calling’ until 11th grade so you have time to experiment.
Follow and invest your time in your passions. That’s what colleges want to see. Don’t try to game the system. Let your ECs show what you’re passionate about. Let your involvement in those ECs show your level of passion (i.e. leadership positions, competitions, etc.). To take a step further, is there any potential for involvement beyond school/local, such as district, regional, state or even national.
I agree with others that posted above. You’re still a sophomore so you have plenty of time to explore and find your passion. Find something you love and excelling at it is much better than sticking with something just for the sake of doing so. As for extracurriculars, I don’t think one stands out more than the other and your plan sounds like a great one. When I was in high school I did track, but I wasn’t the best at it and it was very time consuming. So I decided to quit it to focus on other things. Within that same year I competed on an academic team that made it to the national level, created an award winning yearbook, and had dorm time for my own interests like art and creative writing. It’s all about finding your own path and really putting your heart into it