I’m currently a junior and I’m starting to have worries about extracurriculars, particularly because of my parents. I have high expectations for myself in terms of extracurriculars. I’m hoping to make USAMO and USACO Platinum this year.
I’ve talked to them several times about my extracurriculars and my passion for them, but even so they won’t let me pursue my interests. They always say “You have a 5 on the Calc BC and Comp Sci A AP exams and an 800 on SAT Math II. There’s no point in learning math or computer science anymore until college. It’s not like you could get an 810 on SAT Math II or a 6 on the Calc BC AP test.”
On top of that, they always bring up these weird analogies to me whenever I ask them if I could compete in a math competition or get a math book, etc. They say college applications is like selections for the army, where your legs are your skills in math and English, so if you study too much math, one of your leg’s going to be too long while the other’s too short, so you won’t be able to walk correctly, so colleges won’t admit you.
Back when I hadn’t taken the SAT yet, they wouldn’t let me do ANY extracurriculars because they’d say college applications is like a competition to see who could make the best tapestry, where the material is your academic achievement and the painting on the blanket is your extracurriculars. If you don’t have a good material yet (good SAT score), you can’t paint on your tapestry (you can’t do extracurriculars). You can only start painting once you have a good material (In other words, you can only start doing extracurriculars if you have a good SAT score).
Well, what are your grades and test scores like in English and other subjects that your parents are concerned about?
If you are getting A and A- grades (instead of A+ grades) in honors and AP or HL English and 750 on SAT RW, then it looks like they are being a little too focused on “well rounded”.
But if you are getting C grades in regular English and 400 on SAT RW, then they have a point that English will hold you back despite your success in math.
@JBSeattle That’s exactly what I tell them every single time. I don’t know about everyone else, but personally I would not put myself through the stress of making USAMO or even AIME if it were just for college applications.
Ironically, that’s exactly what they ask me every time. They’re so focused on the college application that they don’t really care whether or not I enjoy what I do. Every time I ask them if I could take some course for USAMO prep, or something like that, they’d ask me if it would boost my college application.
I’d talk to your guidance counselor and see if he/she would be willing to have an early meeting to discuss college admissions where he/she could note the importance of ECs in the process. Hearing about it from another adult might help them to recognize the importance of ECs. The fact that you enjoy it is a bonus!!!
I think your parents have it exactly backwards. Students with perfect GPAs and test scores need great ECs to distinguish themselves. Good luck with making USAMO/USACO Platinum!
Are your parents from another country? They may not understand that the more selective colleges in the US are looking for more than strong academics. I can’t tell from your post if you have no ECs, or if you just aren’t applied to pursue some that you are interested in. I agree that if they are saying no to all of them that you should ask if your GC can help get the message across.
@intparent Both my parents are from China. They do understand to some extent the amount of attention put on ECs from US colleges, but they don’t understand just how much attention is put on it. For example, they had me quit piano after finishing just finishing level 5 (out of 10 total). When I complained to them that I wanted to finish up to level 10 at least and compete in some piano competitions, they declined and said it was useless since I wasn’t planning on majoring in music. When I told them it was for extracurriculars, they simply said that not everyone plays piano, so I’m already standing out by knowing how to play a little bit of piano.
As for ECs, I have quite a number of ECs (piano, martial arts, etc), but I’m not extremely good/stand out in most of them, and neither am I super interested in those. The main ECs I’m super interested in and stand out in are math olympiads, computing olympiads, and web development. I have quite a few achievements in those areas too (AIME qualifier, 36th place team nationally in OMO, 3rd place at Hackathon, USACO Silver level, etc).
I am able to pursue my ECs to some degree, but not a whole lot. To put this into perspective, I was only able to use 3/4th of the time given on the last USACO (3 hours out of the 4 given) to work on the competition since my parents had me do chores for the last hour. That 1 hour difference prevented me from promoting to USACO Gold. Similarly, in math Olympiads, you have an average of 1.5 hours to spend on each problem, but I’m rarely able to work for more than an hour before my parents call me to do chores.
Since your parents actually do want you to get accepted to top schools. maybe recruit more savvy Chinese parents of friends and get them to lobby your parents on your behalf. Have them say that you have a good plan and that your parents should give you the time you need.
Maybe your could negotiate with them ahead of time on the length of time you need for something, and do chores ahead of time to free up enough time for a given activity? Sounds like the them, it is no different than a kid telling a parent “5 more minutes” on a video game or something.
You do have some fine accomplishments already. Assuming you are applying for financial aid, you might make sure they know that fewer than 75 of the approximately 3000 schools in the US “meet need” and provide enough financial aid for students to attend without a “gap” that might require private loans and/or spending more than a family can reasonable attend. And all of those schools reward not just excellent academics, but also very strong ECs.
Now… you did mention that your parents want you to do well in all academic subjects, and they aren’t wrong… if your grades and test scores aren’t as strong in English, social studies, foreign language, etc – then you maybe should be focusing more on academics still and less on higher level ECs.
@damon30 surprisingly I don’t know many Chinese friends/students. There are 3 Chinese classmates of mine, none of whom I know very well. None of them have very stellar grades (they’re all around average), and none of them speak Chinese at home from what I know. It would be quite awkward to just ask their parents to try to persuade mine to give me time for extracurriculars (especially considering we’re opposite genders, if that means anything).
@intparent I’ll probably negotiate some more with them next time. I have tried it in the past, and they often either get annoyed by it and start mocking me or get impatient and cut it off early. Also, as I mentioned in a previous comment to ucbalumnus, I grades and test scores are quite strong in all subjects (A- in AP Lit, AP History, A+ in AP Capstone and Spanish, etc, and 740 on SAT RW as well as 20 on SAT Essay).
@ktong777 What about your parent’s friends? Do you know and talk to any of them? Discussing a child’s college plans is a big “parent friend” topic - look at all the parents on CC! You could start out on the usual upbeat notes and then carefully shift to the EC issue, gauging their reaction to see if they seem sympathetic. If so, ask them if maybe they could talk to your parents and tell them how smart they thought you were, and how mature and knowledgeable you were about the college application process. Trust me, this is the way parent friends talk anyway, so there would nothing awkward about it for them to do this.
@damon30 I don’t know any of my parent’s friends. The only ones I know live in China, and none are really experienced/knowledgeable on the American education system.
It is true that GPA and SAT/ACT are the most important aspects of applications.
Look at the Common Data Set for any potential college of interest and then look at Section C7.
It shows you how much weight they put on the various aspects.
You should do ECs because you enjoy them, you want to explore a topic/area…but an EC by itself won’t get you into college generally. You do need the GPA and SAT scores.