<p>My sophomore D has been working about 25 or more hours per week during the school year. (Yesterday she worked 12 hours in one day, which put her week's total at 32.) She loves the job and earning money (and the money is helpful all around since money is tight for us and this way she can buy whatever she would like for herself) but the job does keep her from doing some things that other kids who don't have jobs might do. (D does do some other extracurricular things and some volunteering, but these other things might take up 5 or so hours per week in total - except for one larger extracurricular thing in the fall which will take up more time and necessitate her cutting back on her hours - and she is already worried about doing because if you're not there a lot, your hours can get cut permanently.) </p>
<p>I guess my question is...does anyone here feel that her significant employment is important enough to an admissions officer that it would make up for a lack of other things? I feel like the answer may be no - and I really don't know for sure how to find out.</p>
<p>For instance, there is a new and interesting volunteer opportunity available to her which would be about 5 hours per week, but it's divided over at least two or three days and that would eliminate the possibility of her working on all of those days she volunteers (it's required that anyone work at least a four hour shift - which means that she has to start immediately after school because place closes at 7 - so even if she volunteers for an hour after school, she then can't go to work). I'm just not sure all this working is better than these other opportunities, even if they take up less time.</p>
<p>(I want to add that even with this amount of work hours, her GPA exceeds a 4.0. That takes a lot of studying and she is often up late finishing work - I can't even imagine her fitting one more thing into her schedule.)</p>
<p>I am by no means an expert, but I would think that balancing work and school, especially with great grades, shows time management skills as well as maturity. It also might lead to a great essay topic. Sounds like she is a great, hardworking kid. </p>
<p>I worked 25+ hours when I was in college because I didn’t have any spending money. I didn’t have time to do any ECs, so it was just work and school work. I didn’t have much of choice, but I made sure my kids did. </p>
<p>It really depends on how much she (the family) needs the money. I would tell her there is more to life than money. She can’t re-do high school or college. At this point of her life, I would teach her how to balance her life. Her focus needs to be her school work, that’s her full time job. She then needs to have time for family, friends, ECs, and part time work.</p>
<p>My S1 did the same thing. He started working when he was a soph. He worked at least 25 hours/week and often more when he was a senior. He was very social and a very good student but didn’t care a thing about high school clubs/activities. His job was his main EC. He had a lot of job responsibility for a high sch. kid. He earned 10K in his senior yr. </p>
<p>His goal was to get a NROTC scholarship. At the scholarship interview, S said the Navy interviewer was less interested in high school activities and more interested in talking about S1’s job responsibilities and how he balanced school and work plus training for NROTC while maintaining a high gpa/class rank.</p>
<p>S1 ended up with a NROTC scholarship plus two merit scholarships fr. our big state u. So the kid who did very few high school activities (except having his name on the list of a few honor societies) ended up with a fullride at a university he really wanted to attend.</p>
<p>Here is how I view this and I am not saying I am right. If a student <em>has</em> to work because of money then adcoms factor it in a different way (or they should). On the other hand if a student does not <em>have</em> to work but chooses to then it is not necessary better. I think it can be better or neutral. I assume it depends on the job, responsibility, on what the student would have done instead etc etc. In my mind it ties with everything else that the student has to offer. </p>
<p>I tend to agree with the last answer. I think that working when you don’t have to does take away from contributing to your community and pursuing academic and other EC’s. But parents with kids who work often say they think it is good and helpful. It might matter what they are doing. If you look at the Common Data Set, the college will report what factors they look at in applicants.</p>
<p>So if she has a target college like ND, she might want to consider the CDS. This doesn’t mean she won’t get accepted somewhere it is just ‘considered’ And she might be applying to colleges where EC’s don’t matter at all, like many state colleges will just love her gpa. There is something to be said for living your life how you want and not getting to fixed on particular colleges. But if money is tight and she is looking at meets full need colleges, they tend to distinguish students on basis of compelling ECs and what you bring to a community.</p>
<p>There may be some volunteer opportunities that don’t conflict with her job. If she’s done with work by 7, maybe she can take something home, volunteer during school or before, volunteer on Saturday mornings. She might team up with an elementary school teacher and help that teacher by cutting things out at night or grading math papers.</p>
<p>She may not have time for any of that, and then she’ll just have to take her chances on her record speaking for itself, but if she wants some community service hours, or a school activity, she can make time but she’ll have to create her own opportunities.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input. She is the president of a club in her school but it probably takes one afternoon a week at most. She also volunteers for one hour, one day per week as a “Big Sister” - so no opportunity for more face time but she keeps in regular touch with the child in other ways. So it’s not as if she does nothing outside of work, but I’m not sure it’s enough. I think she would be willing to cut back on her work hours if it didn’t mean possibly losing all the hours and she doesn’t want to risk that. Her employer loves her though, for what it’s worth, but he is used to working with teens and I guess he feels that the ones who work harder are more deserving of more hours. </p>
<p>She is not working to help support our family, but it’s true that her work keeps is from having to buy her school clothes, shoes, and other essentials that a parent would normally pay for so I guess in a way it does. However, I doubt we will qualify for much financial aid and we do have some college savings.</p>
<p>I worked in high school (usually ranging from 16-24 hours, depending on if I worked Sunday that week), and I went to college, no problems. Are you thinking Harvard and the like, or state flagship? I just went to the state flagship, so I can’t tell you what private schools would think, but I think a state flagship would be fine with it. This work wasn’t necessary to help my family, but I used it to buy some things, gain work experience, and save some for college.</p>
<p>I don’t know where you live, but it’s my understanding that this is considered very normal in some parts of the country, and rather strange in other parts. At my high school most people had some sort of part time job for at least junior and senior years. </p>
<p>Not concerned about state flagship - they will base her admission on grades and scores. I’m really wondering more about the higher level schools.</p>
<p>I live in the Northeast in a fairly “fancy” town - but, like most towns, there are haves and have nots. There are some students who work and others who don’t. Some who work do it because they need the money - others just like to work. I guess we are somewhere in-between.</p>
<p>@brownparent - how does one find that info for each college? I know about collegedata.com but is that accurate, or do I need to find it on each individual college website? Thanks!</p>
<p>Google “college X common data set” and it should give you a link to the place on the website that the college keeps that data. CDS is where collegedata gets it from, I don’t know when they update for current year.</p>
<p>This strikes me as too much work, certainly for my kids. They have their whole lives to work, they are only in HS for 4 years. What are your combined expectations for college? The same behavior? If so, I doubt that would be likely.</p>
<p>In this case, her work is essentially her extracurricular activity. Assuming you are talking about the top colleges, what they are interested in is not how many clubs you are president of, but what you have accomplished in your EC, how your community benefited, what you learned. If she can answer some of those questions about her job – how she has improved the company, has she been promoted/given more responsibility, what skills has she gained from this employment – then she’s fine. </p>
<p>My younger son belonged to the math honors society which did math tutoring during school hours. I thought it was funny because math isn’t actually his strong suit, but he was quite good at it, unlike his older brother who has a much more intuitive understanding of math.</p>
<p>I also agree with fireandrain - if she’s got accomplishments she can point to as part of her job, having fewer other ECs will be less of a concern.</p>
<p>32 hours in one week sounds excessive. I worked about 20 through high school, but 14 was on weekends and only 6 during the week. If this is a volunteer opportunity she really wants to pursue, perhaps she can talk to the employer (who loves her) about not getting hours cut? If she is just looking at the volunteer thing as something for her college resume I’m not sure I would bother. Working as an EC is fine in my opinion.</p>
<p>32 hours in one week does sound excessive and actually, it may be illegal for a minor to work that much while school is in session. For instance, NY state limits hours to 28 (assuming she is 16 or 17).</p>
<p>In Michigan, if I remember correctly, it’s a limit of 64 hours between working and class time, so if someone only had class 30 hours a week, they’d be allowed to work up to 34 hours. 32 is probably right at the legal limit. </p>
<p>However, it’s plenty possible that the employer isn’t aware/doesn’t care about the regulations here. If no one’s complaining, no harm. </p>
<p>Everyone has different expectations and I guess some colleges look at things differently. My kids both went to big state u’s so I guess having tons of ec’s wasn’t a necessity. Both boys did play h.s. football and some other non-spectacular club stuff. However, they both learned SO much working those jobs. Almost every one of their friends had p/t jobs too. DH and I both had p/t jobs when we were in high school. We expected our kids to do the same</p>
<p>My main concern would be whether so much work is interfering with academics, not whether work is better or worse than conventional ECs.</p>
<p>My son was one of those kids who preferred paid work to school-based ECs. He started out working in a library, where kids could work 2- or 3-hour shifts after school. Later, he got a job in a store, where the minimum shift was 6 hours. My husband and I insisted that during the school year, he could only work those shifts on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday because on the other days, he would not be able to get his homework done if he worked a 6-hour shift. His employer went along with it.</p>
<p>Does your daughter have enough time to get her schoolwork done? Is she keeping her grades up and taking rigorous courses? Or is she having to cut corners at school because of all the work?</p>
</p>