<p>Really? I'm so unsure of how to express it. It was like a program though, selective and such, so I think it should count for more than just school, its a big Extracurricular for me. It kind of compounds on every other extracurricular I've done. Also, what would I say for a 3 week leadership camp hours?</p>
<p>I'm noticing that a lot of people on this thread are ignoring the fact that the Common App also asks for the number of weeks a year you do on the activity. Presumably, the hrs/wk rating only applies to those weeks, and becomes extremely difficult to create a "composite" hrs/wk for all ECs.</p>
<p>Am I missing something?</p>
<p>The common application also has an area that let's you explain any thing the form doesn't fit very well. Really, do you think it makes any sense for a semester abroad to be listed as extra curricular. Talk about it in an essay if it had that much of an impact but listing 168 hours a week would just be ridiculous.</p>
<p>Everyone here is lying about how many hours they are occupied during the school year...50 hours on top of school? COME ON! You're not that good. I'm sorry.</p>
<p>Marching band kills in terms of time spent/week. Our band's typical week consists of a 3 hour practice on Monday, 3 hour practice on Thursday, 5 hour football game on Friday, 6 hour practice on Saturday, and whole day competition on Sunday (6-12 hours depending on how far away it is, how many bands participating, etc.). That's almost 30 hours by itself on some weeks.
Thankfully, my other activities haven't been very time-consuming in terms of hours/week in the past, but that might change this year because of leadership positions I have (President of the ACLU chapter and VP of a very intense Model UN program).</p>
<p>hmm...
job: 18 hours a week
track: 2 hours a day * 6 days a week = 12 hours a week
science team: 2 hours a week in terms of actual meetings, but i study by myself like a half hour a day? well let's just say 2.
GSA: 1 hour a week
yay, 33 hours.</p>
<p>the thing about my homework is I tend to do a lot of it in class, also I do not take a full load of courses, I keep one free, which is usually 1 hour, in which I can finish all my homework. The block I have free this year I could fill up with AP Stat. on the other hand, I do not want to die. plus I don't even care about Stat. <em>shrugs</em></p>
<p>I feel like talking about summer is kind of moot. I mean, you don't have school. and more importantly you don't have homework. I work close to 40 hours or over 40 hours a week during summer. and then I have like 40 hours a week at the lab I work out. I do a ton of stuff. but I don't go home and then work on more stuff, I just come in the next day. it's pretty easy.</p>
<p>This somewhat relates to Salpert's 168-a-week thing, but also, I'm sure, many other people: </p>
<p>I'm not sure sleep should be included in an EC. No offense, but what's so special about sleeping in a motel for an overnight band comp. or wrestling tournament or a semester abroad compared to me sleeping in my own bed. Sleep is sleep.</p>
<p>This is kind of my interpretation of things...</p>
<p>The question is really just trying to get an idea of your AVERAGE involvement. Not the busiest week of your life, not slow season, but AVERAGE.</p>
<p>I was in a sport where I was gone for multiple weeks out of the year at competitions. I suppose that in some sense, I could have added up 24hrs a day for 2 weeks plus a bunch of extra practices leading up to those main events, but obviously that would have really skewed things. Such events and weeks were atypical, and it was very clear from my level of involvement that I would have dedicated extra time to competitions and such, so there was little point in including them in my "count." I personally don't even think that you should add up all the hours involved--travel and team meals and a weekend away at a meet--and divide by the number of weeks. Just pick a representative, average, run-of-the-mill week and approximate the hours dedicated to a particular activity. </p>
<p>I also don't think that a semester abroad belongs on this list unless, perhaps, you skip the hours (for example, writing "Semester abroad in ______" as the activity, putting "--" in the hours per week, and then filling in the number of weeks you were gone, just to be thorough without being kind of silly). Writing 168hrs/week just seems trivial to me. For something so unique, this can't possibly be the only place that it will appear in your application! Also, consider it this way: When someone says she's involved in swimming, that can mean a lot of things. An adcom will use this particular "hours involved" estimate to distinguish the applicant who's swimming 2hrs/week on a rec team from the one who's swimming 25hrs/week competitively. But when you say that you spent a semester abroad, that doesn't leave much to the imagination. It's very obvious how much time you invested.</p>
<p>OVER-THINKING, people, OVER-THINKING :p</p>
<p>Do you people get like NO HW or take like ZERO classes?
for me just 1 harder AP class can take up to 2 hours a day(reading + worksheets).
a school day :
Lets say school is 8 hours
hw for me total around like 4-5 hours
sleep 7 hours
that leaves be 4-5 more hours a day...
lets say all your food consumption takes 1 hour total
we got 3-4 hours left.
that doesn't leave me much time to do anything else (that includes like EC, friend time, and as human we procrastinate. oh and the time we all spend on Collegeconfidential.com xP)</p>
<p>if you have a sports in the fall (15 hours) and another one in spring (15) hours... YOU DON"T just ADD THEM UP!! >.< they are obviously NOT in the same week.
and if you only do sports half of the year.... take wtv hour. divide by 2! (average!! )</p>
<p>anything over 40 seems like the person is just not trying hard enough in school ("not taking challenging enough courses")</p>
<p>^ that's completely off...I'm going to be graduating high school with over 14 AP courses and I have a 96.9 unweighted GPA and a 99.99 weighted GPA at an extremely competitive high school in NJ.</p>
<p>I swim year round (15 hours a week), marching band, science olympiad, science bowl, science league, participate in USABO (semi finalist) and AMC (AIME 5 years since 7th grade, made USAMO last year)</p>
<p>on top of all that, I do research at Princeton University year round.</p>
<p>Mmm... West Windsor-Plainsboro, jfs4691?</p>
<p>:-) maybe /******************/</p>
<p>How do people do all of this at the same time? I only physically get a maximum of 2 clubs in a day, which is a maximum of 4 hours a day with a super-packed schedule since I can't manipulate the delicate folds of time. How are people sticking in 20 hour sports with other venues that take up an equal amount of time? Somebody's studying in his/her sleep...</p>
<p>eh...I finish all busy work during classes...for everything else, I do it between 10pm - 2 a.m. and sleep for 5 hours.</p>
<p>I don't want to preach but I will. This is ridiculous! Do you guys know that you have the rest of your life ahead of you? Why in the world would you want to put in all those those EC hours so that you have a "good looking" application. All this so you can get into an IVY (possibly) and then go to another IVY (possibly) so that you can go work 80 hours a week for someone else to pay off those loans, and then have to keep working absurd hours to keep up a lifestyle, etc...
I am proud to be an American, but do you think the rest of the world may have it right with just enjoying life?</p>
<p>"Why in the world would you want to put in all those those EC hours so that you have a "good looking" application. "</p>
<p>-well you're assuming that I'm only doing my EC's for college...which is not true. I enjoy everything I do and my EC's are great ways to meet new people and spend time with friends.</p>
<p>"so that you can go work 80 hours a week for someone else to pay off those loans, and then have to keep working absurd hours to keep up a lifestyle, etc.."</p>
<p>-you're also assuming that I'll have a job where I'm working 80 hours a week which is again, a stupid assumption. I know many people who have graduated from top 10 schools and they have GREAT jobs with GREAT lives. you're also assuming that i'll graduate college with debt, which is AGAIN an assumption which is not true.</p>
<p>"I am proud to be an American, but do you think the rest of the world may have it right with just enjoying life?"</p>
<p>-are you suggesting that students only work hard in America? I certainly hope not, because it is again grossly untrue.</p>
<p>PKswmr76 is completely right, at least for me. I don't do my ECs to suck up to colleges. I do them because they interest me, and I dedicate large amounts of my time to the ones that really matter to me. I don't have a problem spending a lot of my life doing something I love, do you? </p>
<p>And as for the claim that it's all to get into the venerable IVY schools... I really couldn't care much less. Sure, it would be great to go to an Ivy school (one that I like, like Brown, not one that doesn't fit me, like Columbia) but it would only be great because I know I would get a great education in something that interests me. I will be just as happy go to University of Wherever if they have a good program in my major and just generally appeal to me. </p>
<p>I have never once in my life thought, "This will definitely get me into Harvard!" before doing something. It's a ridiculous assumption that I only get involved because I want an Ivy education. I get involved in things that I am passionate about, and I would do them even if somebody swore to me that I would never get into an Ivy League. I spend my time doing what I love and am proud to be doing, and if that dedication appeals to some top colleges, so what? </p>
<p>I think the only thing that's ridiculous is how much you assume, cubanmom.</p>
<p>I think you both may be protesting a little too much.
But it is okay. It is just I have come to a point in my life where I know that it isn't all about getting the perfect job, house, car, (or for that matter writing the perfect essay for Dartmouth) etc... I have traveled all over this world and was born in in another. I have seen it from all sides. If you are truly enjoying everything you do, great! Remember though, you are only young once, you will have the rest of your life to overachieve. "Mas sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo."</p>
<p>Anything over 50 seems really crazy to me. I mean I work 14 hours a week and do a couple of ECs at most...I like to spend the rest of my time (when I'm not eating, sleeping, or doing hw, etc) by reading books. Kudos to your overachievers.</p>
<p>eh...probably 35-50 hours</p>