<p>CountingDown -- I actually did include some of my commute time in these tallies (when phraseology allowed for it). As I recall, the questions typically asked for a list of activities followed by an estimated number of hours per week and weeks per year dedicated to each activity. Well, a crazy commute could definitely count as time dedicated to a particular far-away activity! By junior year, I was driving 1.5-2hrs (one way) daily for my sport. I didn't add in all of the commuting hours, but I definitely counted a few. It seemed an important part of showing my dedication, and it also made the hours more representative of my actual schedule.</p>
<p>The darn commute meant that I was up at 4am during the week and/or at 3am every Saturday/Sunday for years, not to mention often getting home very late, so you can bet I found a way to make that clear in my applications :p</p>
<p>Obviously this is just another judgment call, and to start logging every ten minute stint in the car would be ridiculous and deceptive. I also drove 45min one way to school, but I definitely didn't count those hours towards after-school activities. When I counted commute, it was only to make the hours more representative of reality, not to inflate them. Saying that I spent an afternoon practicing for two hours when that particular activity was actually taking me straight from school until 11pm or so just didn't make sense.</p>
<p>(average school week-fall) 7 hours work + 2 hours chinese school volunteer + 4 hours clubs + 5 hrs internship/community service class + 4 hours piano=
22 hours total
(average school week-spring) 4 hours clubs + 12 hours softball + 7 hours work/community service= 23 hours total<br>
(average school week-summer) 30-40 hours work or community service or camps</p>
<p>i think 50 hours a week is absolutely believable</p>
<p>i work about 22 hours a week during the school year, while playing 3 sports. I said 15 hours/week for sports, which includes practices every day and games. Put in all my lunches plus afterschool work on student council, which adds up to about 10 hours a week, and you've got 47 already. I haven't even added natural helpers, national honor society, or tutoring.</p>
<p>it's not just a few kids, either. so many kids get home at 11 pm every night and stay up two more hours to do homework, and then get up at 6:30 for school. it gets tiring, but every few weeks or so you'll get a lucky break with nothing to do on a saturday morning.</p>
<p>One thing that I don't think many kids realize until college is how dramatically different high schools can be. A kid at one school might be able to do 50 hours of ECs per week while a kid at another school does 20, and those two kids might actually be busy the exact same amount of hours.</p>
<p>For example, the above poster says that 50 hours is completely doable, because "so many kids get home at 11pm every night and stay up two more hours to do homework, and then get up at 6:30 for school." Well, I personally went to a high school where I was doing at least 5-6 hours of homework per night by sophomore year, and I was normal. On top of that, my main EC required a 4 hour round-trip commute, multiple times per week. 50hrs of ECs--or anything remotely close to it--would never, ever have been possible, period (not just impractical or unpleasant, but impossible). I generally kept a 5am-1am schedule with less than 20hrs/week ECs (more often in the 10-15hr range).</p>
<p>So just remember that everyone is coming from these different backgrounds. Just because something is manageable or typical for high-achieving kids at one school doesn't mean that it's even possible for equally driven students somewhere else. Similarly, just because something is unheard of for students of one school doesn't mean that other kids are lying when they claim to do it elsewhere (nor does it necessarily make them "better," or even more competitive applicants).</p>
<p>I was blown away when I got to college and realized how different everyone's high school experiences had been. Some came from schools like mine, where the vast majority of time and energy went straight to regular old homework, others went to schools where they could do their homework and still have time for 8hrs a day of ECs, and others came from small towns where they went to an afterschool club and then spent their evenings hanging out with friends and family. Home school, boarding school, sports academies, magnet schools, charter schools, crappy public schools, elite public schools, private schools, religious schools, international schools, regular old suburban schools...don't assume that yours, whatever it is, is the norm.</p>
<p>ok 60 hours is beyond rediculous- if u were to do school AND have an avg of 2 hrs of hw a mon-thurs that would u have lets say 6 hours a night after school for ECs. but 15 hours a day on saturday and sunday- thats just rediculous. people on this site have no lives or are obvious fib/liars</p>
<p>I had about 30-40 hours per week of EC's on average. It was pretty brutal in the fall especially when I had swimming, marching band, homecoming, NHS, and FCA to worry about all at the same time. I couldn't imagine having to put in more hours than that. I might have had a couple weeks where I had over 50, but that was only because of all day invitationals for band or swimming on the weekend.</p>
<p>No, that is during school. Last school year I didn't work nearly as much, probably 20-25 hours a week. But, now I am being scheduled to work every weekday from 3-7:30, 9-5 on Saturdays, and 10-6 on Sundays. </p>
<p>Yearbook really isn't that much - yearbook is a class at my school, and thats an hour and a half each day. So, outside of school I only have about 2-3 hours of yearbook.</p>
<p>without job (summer)... seems pretty reasonable
most of that is after school I mean, you have to use say 2-3 hours for homework maybe, so what, 5 hours after school each day is 25. Lunches are another 5. Weekends offer about 10 hours each day. So I think that the MAX you could pull out is like....45-50.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Well the thing about 40+ hours is that adcoms might be wondering, "Do they have a social life?"
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I still have a social life. It just sometimes has to take a backseat to my other commitments.</p>
<p>As I said before, I have about 50 hr/wk with sport and job. During the season, I spend about 30 hours on my sport (wrestling) if including tournaments which are often two days. During the off-season, I only spend about 10 hours on my sport. Plus I will be doing NHS, Yearbook, Newspaper, and Best Buddies. If I have time, I'll do some more.</p>
<p>Does each of your activities run throughout the entire school year? All of mine, if added up, would show a ridiculous number of hours, but many of them only run during certain months.</p>
<p>for me (horseback riding and violin)
during an average competition week and NOT including travel time to get to these competitions (which happen about twice a month)</p>
<p>hours for mon+tues+wed+thurs+fri+sat+sun</p>
<p>2 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3-8 (depending on whether or not I miss school for competition) + 9 + 8 = 33-38 hours per week. </p>
<p>It's realistic and definately liveable. I go to school for 7 hours, spend about 2-3 hours after school doing activities, then have 4 hours to spend doing hw and eating dinner and chilling. It just gets hard when I'm spending 2 hours in traffic doing nothing while coming home from horse shows, cuz I can't do anything in those hours except sit on the road with the rest of southern CA.</p>
<p>Wrestling for the most part is all year. Once state is over, then the club starts, so we only get about a month of free time. Still the club is a substantially less amount of time.</p>
<p>NHS, Yearbook, Newspaper, and Best Buddies are yearround, but they don't meet everyday.</p>
<p>I'm struggling with how to say mine... help?
-What do I say for hours a week for when I did a semester abroad? I have 168 hours a week, 18 weeks a year written down because it was 24/7 for 18 weeks. Is that the proper way to write it?
-I am Regional Historian for my youth group, and sometimes its 2 hours a week, sometimes it's 6, and sometimes we have full weekend retreats? How do I express this?
-I was Communications Vice President last year and am now Programming Vice President of my Temple Youth Group, and this varies as well. Anywhere from 2-8 hours a week.</p>
<p>Thoughts? Not counting my semester abroad, my guess total would be...
Reg. Historian- 3 hours
CVP/PVP of TYG- 8 hours
Tutoring Spanish-speaking kids in English at an elementary school- 12 hours
Hebrew High- 3 hours
Ugh there's a lot more, this is so confusing... but tentatively:
26 hours? But my semester abroad too? BAH.</p>