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I'm a sophomore at a competitve MA high school, and I'm currently taking 8 classes as opposed to the 7 that most in my year are taking, except 4 of us, listed below.

Honors Orchestra
Honors Chemistry
Honors Algebra II
Honors English
Honors Latin III
American History (no honors available)
Phys Ed
Democracy in America, an internet course

Right now, I'm stressed beyond belief with not only my classes, but also my ECs, one of which is rapidly becoming my life, which I don't mind at all. But my school runs on a 7 day system, so my internet course is being packed into 3 actual days, which gives me no time to finish the work. My grades are dropping and I'm extremely exhausted.

Thus, I'm thinking about dropping Orchestra and putting my internet class in its slot, then taking a study opposite gym. If I dropped the class though, it would be put on my transcript as withdrawn. I'm rather successful with music, but the class this year is excruciating and I hate it. Should I drop it? I'd personally much rather have the time to do my other work and classes, but I hate to think that this could possibly be the tipping factor in two years when it comes down to acceptances.

Oh and supposedly our grades in orchestra will be based 98% on attitude, and I'm a bit resentful about not getting first chair this year. The conductor nearly had a conniption fit yelling at me a week ago, so this doesn't look good for my grade or my GPA overall. Yet another reason to drop before the end of the first quarter?

By Celebrian23 (Celebrian23) on Wednesday, October 06, 2004 - 07:07 pm: Edit

a withdrawal really doesn't look good, if there would be no record of it, i would encourage you to drop it, but i really don't know

By Ck61188 (Ck61188) on Wednesday, October 06, 2004 - 09:54 pm: Edit

i'm in a similar situation. i have 7 classes at school plus an internet course, and i'm considering dropping orchestra so i have time to work on my extra course. since i don't want a withdrawn, i'm thinking i'll wait till semester to drop.

By Reidmc (Reidmc) on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 01:19 am: Edit

As long as you continue to take a challenging schedule, I can't imagine that dropping Orchestra would be a bad move, particularly if helped you strengthen your other grades. Your other courses (except for Phy Ed, which I assume is a requirement) are going to be viewed as more substantial than Orchestra, anyway. And though I don't endorse your attitude toward your Orchestra position, it does appear like dropping Orchestra would help your GPA and class rank, which are very important for college admissions.

By Liberalistic (Liberalistic) on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 04:31 pm: Edit

Thanks, for the record, I dropped the class this morning. And honestly, I'm much happier already.