Activities list. How many hours too many?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid's club swim team is 2 hours a day 6 days a week plus dryland for 4-5 hours a week. Plus weekend meets. That's 49 weeks a year. Then high school swim takes about 5-7 hours a week. That's 18 weeks a year.

He does a few other activities and I'd say he easily spends 20+ hours on activities in a week.

Club sports at a high level and a school team is a huge time commitment.

T20 doesn’t care about that unless you’ve won some great awards. Preferably at the national level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid's club swim team is 2 hours a day 6 days a week plus dryland for 4-5 hours a week. Plus weekend meets. That's 49 weeks a year. Then high school swim takes about 5-7 hours a week. That's 18 weeks a year.

He does a few other activities and I'd say he easily spends 20+ hours on activities in a week.

Club sports at a high level and a school team is a huge time commitment.

T20 doesn’t care about that unless you’ve won some great awards. Preferably at the national level.

Who said anything about T20?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:thought this was helpful:

"During the school year, 25 hours is a solid amount of time to devote to extracurricular pursuits. If a student lists many more hours, admissions officers may find it difficult to believe (even if it’s true). If a student lists significantly fewer hours, admissions officers may question the student’s commitment.

But it’s not like all of a student’s extracurricular activities should be spread out evenly. For instance, if a student is involved in five activities during the school year, admissions officers don’t love to see that a student participates in each one of those activities for five hours. They’d rather see a spike in the activities that showcase a student’s singular hook."

https://www.ivycoach.com/the-ivy-coach-blog/extracurricular-activities/are-extracurriculars-important-college-admissions

https://www.saraharberson.com/blog/the-foolproof-way-to-order-extracurricular-activities

25 hours a week for extracurriculars on top of 35 hours a week for school is insane. When are teens supposed to find the time to do normal teen stuff? Chasing girls, shenanigans in the Walmart parking lot, etc. I played a sport in high school that probably required an average of 10 hours a week between practice and games, but that was just in season, which lasted less than half the school year. Senior year I was on a student government committee that met twice a month after school for about an hour. That was it as far as extracurriculars, and I got in everywhere I applied. Not joker schools either. The expectations foisted on today's teens are masochistic. No wonder this generation is having a mental health crisis.

This is what happens when you try to quota Asians out from top schools by adding requirements that white people think Asian kids aren't good at. Asians still end up being at the top of those requirements as well. So you need to add another criterion, and so on.

OMFG we get it, it's harder for asians to get into good schools because they are already packed to the brim with asians and they don't want the schools to look like a cricket match on lunar new year.

But most students are not competing with the asians, asians are competing amongst themselves so it really doesn't hurt anyone else when they discriminate against asians. They are in their own private little arms race.

And it's not like white people engage in the activities that admissions committees like. The admissions committees like the activities that white people engage in, that's why they can say "pursue your passion" because whatever their passion is, it will be highly valued. Watch how quickly pickleball becomes an important college sport for women

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's no real way to add it all up since you are not doing them all at the same time usually.

There’s a standard formula to create appropriate hr/week using total weeks in year.

What do you mean? What formula? Is that listed in the common app somewhere?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid's club swim team is 2 hours a day 6 days a week plus dryland for 4-5 hours a week. Plus weekend meets. That's 49 weeks a year. Then high school swim takes about 5-7 hours a week. That's 18 weeks a year.

He does a few other activities and I'd say he easily spends 20+ hours on activities in a week.

Club sports at a high level and a school team is a huge time commitment.

During the season, club sports generally stop. About 10-15 hours/week for high school sports. Club sports are usually demanding less unless you are good enough to get recruited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD hated that activities section. What was she to do if her hours fluctuate during the year or from year to year? She typically works from 5 to 15 hours weekly depending on the time of the year. I just told her to average them. So she just put 10hrs/week for the whole year. She has a fall sports, so it looks like she does a lot of hours during that time (25hrs for sport and 10 for job). We really didn't think about too many hours being a problem. I hope it's ok. Common app does not provide any space to explain.

I agree. Objectively in total my kid's junior year makes no sense, but it is literally correct the way they make you do it. It looks like 50 hour per week, but they aren't busy in the same weeks so it isn't actually cumulative. They should give a line to describe the hours with words: "I hour per week x 27 weeks except during shows, then 30 hours per week x3 weeks x 3 shows." Sport in season 15 hours per week x 8 weeks." (not the same weeks as theater, obviously). And so on. It's so hard to make sense of this when you have so many different activities that go on all year but have different busy seasons.

[Anonymous]

OP is your kid claiming 25 hours a week, 52 weeks a year?

For my kids (juniors so we haven’t actually filled anything out) things ebb and flow. So they might write that they work 10 hours a week 48 weeks a year but in reality they work 3 in basketball season and 20 in the summer and it averages out to 10. I don’t know another way to do it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP is your kid claiming 25 hours a week, 52 weeks a year?

For my kids (juniors so we haven’t actually filled anything out) things ebb and flow. So they might write that they work 10 hours a week 48 weeks a year but in reality they work 3 in basketball season and 20 in the summer and it averages out to 10. I don’t know another way to do it?

Never claim 52 weeks a year. No one does anything 52 weeks a year. That is a major red flag.

[Anonymous]

And then you all wonder why your kids are all stressed out or getting injured playing a sport all year round for 20 hours a week…get a grip.

[Anonymous]

my kids did an average. it would have been 50 hours/ week if they did they highest hours during highest season.