<p>It isn’t standing, it’s marching, at some tempos marching is about the speed of a run. I didn’t say we were tougher either, I just said it to point out how difficult it is.
Some sports at certain schools are more intense, but working your mind can be harder and more exhausting than working your body.
I don’t disagree, it’s really dangerous I wish we had more water breaks. </p>
<p>At my school Cross Country is only after school 2 to 5:30, with no weekend practices or late/early practices but some meets on weekends. Should they get the same credit you do?</p>
<p>OK, so running track is physically exhausting. Try building a competitive robot in 6 weeks, meetings every day from 5-10 after school, 8-5 on saturdays, often on sundays too. Then spend 4-5 weekends (Thursday, friday and Saturday) at competitions, volunteer work for the team, fund raising, and general shop maintenance. Not to mention al of the traveling PR events that they are involved in. It is a lot of time as well, and mentally exhausting. Yes, my son will come home and sleep all night too.
No one is saying that you do not work hard. You do, but not harder than anyone else passionate about their activity. Just because you have an athletic talent, bandgeek has a music talent, and my son has academic talents, does not mean that the time you spend on your running is more important. It happens to be what YOU enjoy. Bandgeek like music, my son likes robots.
Take a deep breath, the world needs all kinds of people that are passionate about thier activities, and one is not “better” than another. Unfortunately, public schools in US have not been really good about holding up art/academics as much as athletes, and it is a shame. It has lead to a terrible sense of entitlement and “better than you” attitudes among many athletes at many levels.</p>
<p>^ The thing is (on CC especially) people seem to think that athletes are idiots who don’t work hard, Your son obviously works very hard with robotics but the vast majority of extracurricular activities that aren’t sports son require the insane time commitment. I (and most of the other athletes that I know) am involved in a lot of other EC’s and taking an all AP course load in addition to doing sports twenty plus hours a week all year round.</p>
<p>Considering the “diversity” shown whenever you join or play a varsity sport, appeals to alot of kids just trying to jolt their apps. But in reality, Cross Country,Tennis,Swim, Badminton have become so generic whenever you see alot of these ambitious “Ivy-League Bound Kids” it really takes away from the kids that truly play at a competitive level in the four sports I mentioned. I play Varsity Basketball at one of the largest schools in the state and held an internship. Although it’s quite bold to say my internship was “tougher, and more time-consuming” I treat it at the same priority level with basketball</p>
<p>I agree with blackandyellow. Nothing is more important over the other. </p>
<p>Student 1) Is ranked top 10 in the nation for swimming and wins national meets
Student 2) Gets notable distinction from state government for exemplary volunteer service and wins the Presidential Service Award (1000 hours i think? Then like Obama sends you something or something LOL.)
Student 3) Wins Grand Award at the Intel Science Talent Search</p>
<p>Student 1, 2 and 3 have potential to be Harvard material. I wouldn’t rank any of them to be perfectly honest.</p>