<p>Okay so I've played sports my entire life and focused my energy on basketball and track/field for 3 years of high school. Now I'm a senior and I made the conscious decision that there was no way that I could maintain good grades in my 5 AP classes (I have a 4.4 weighted and 4.0 unweighted right now) while playing basketball so I was okay with my decision. However it never occurred to me that I might want to drop track/field too. I guess in the back of my mind, it wasn't as much of a commitment as basketball (I do varsity shot and discus). So my problem is that I said 4 years of track/field on all my applications and am willing to personally write every school that I won't be participating this year if and only if someone can assure me that this WON'T HURT my chances. If this wasn't clear, I DO NOT expect an athletic scholarship so really do not have the incentive to continue besides the fact that I would disappoint my coach. I think I was fortunate to have maintained my grades throughout high school and I think its time to cut my losses. Thoughts? I'm applying to UCB, UCLA, UCSD, UCI, UCR, UCSB, Stanford, and USC.</p>
<p>Colleges would rather have a student without a 4.0 but with good ECs than a 4.0 who drops out of ECs. Dropping one wouldn’t be a huge deal, but I would be concerned with dropping multiple. </p>
<p>I’m no expert, but I lost my 4.0 because I literally overbooked myself with ECs. I got into Stanford, which you mention as one of your choices. From what I know about Stanford they value the “well-rounded” individual, not just someone with strong academics.</p>
<p>^^^^^ I see what your saying… On the other hand, Stanford is a reach for me. I’ll keep my hopes up though Im just wondering about the the UCs… for some reason my major in computer science has no direct correlation with sports other than the fact that I can perform moderately well under pressure. I just don’t want to screw up my grades and AP test scores because of long league meets. Any other opinions?</p>
<p>Tricky question–it all depends. Have you taken other ap classes while participating in sports? If so, are you taking more than in the past and dropping sports shows that you understand the commitment needed for more ap classes? Do you have any other ECs besides sports? If not, it might look like you can’t handle demanding academics and other activities at the same time and colleges will be expecting you to do that on campus. If you plan on devoting more time to other ECs that are more meaningful to you than sports, it’s probably a good thing. Basically, if sports are your only EC, dropping them will not help you get into a competitive school.</p>
<p>This isn’t always true. There are hundreds of colleges, especially state schools, that are very stat-driven in their admissions process and care very little about your ECs. It’s mostly just the very high-end schools that require a high-powered EC portfolio.</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t see a big difference between 3 years of track and 4 years of track for most schools (assuming you are not applying as a recruited track athlete). What might be an issue is not that you dropped track but that you might be seen as padding your app with exaggerated achievements. </p>
<p>I think an approach I would take would be to wait until there was some positive development to update the schools about, say an award or some other honor, and write them a letter telling them about that, and then say that, in addition, you wish to also update them that circumstances changed and you ended not competing on the track team your senior year as you had planned. Sacrificing an EC that you enjoy to concentrate on hard academics might well be seen as a GOOD thing at many schools, especially the very academic ones. It shows you have proper priorities.</p>
<p>But I would NOT surrender a 4.0 UW GPA without a fight if it were me. A perfect GPA through all four years is a far more meaningful achievement than one more year of track.</p>
Just comment…</p>