sports and school.

No, it's not just you, don't worry. :-) I'm a runner/band person, and I feel the pain of 6 AM practices. What I found that has helped me for the past four years is to keep a daily schedule book aka my bible. Haha. Anyway, by writing in the times for practices/meets/competitions/everything else that needed to be done, and homework, I was able to schedule my time better. Also, any projects/long term assignments that I had I would work on every day for a bit, slowing getting them done, so I wasn't overwhelmed. One thing that helped me free up some time after school was working on homework during lunch. I know that may seem dorky, but the fifteen-twenty minutes were enough to knock off usually my math, maybe chem/physics, or just to study for any classes/tests. But the biggest thing for me is keeping organized and allotting certain times for certain subjects. I hope this helps, and feel free to PM or IM me if I can be of any further help!

oo. yeah. balancing schoolwork and extra curricular stuff is TOUGH. ive done it with school+cross country+ band.
theres not really anything you can do about it, except maybe stay up later, and try and get the little things out of the way first. and then just do homework when you normally wouldnt. like if you stay up late on fridays and saturdays, then instead of watching tv or whatever, do some homework. something that might help you out is if you just make some kinda mental schedule, where you know youll just get a certain amount of work done at a time so its balanced out. something thats also helpful is trying to finish things ahead of time, thats what i do, cuz my school does block scheduling, so i just try and stay a day ahead on all my work, and if something takes longer than i have a second day. i know none of those options sound fun, but hey, school is almost designed to suck.
if it werent for the select few holidays we get than itd almost be a form of prison, i think..well except wed have to pay for our food still. lol.

basketball and track baby = D and with 4 APs to boot. definitely get in work any time you can. you can find alot of free time during the day if you just look for it. i've had to cuz this year is a complete 180 from my last two slack-off years. try reading on that walk to your next class. if you get to class early do some work then. if your teacher lets you, bring lunch back to the room (not always! even i'll go crazy if i don't socialize some). if you don't drive and have to wait to get picked up after school practice get some work done then too. and if your parents don't mind, bring books to the dinner table. oh and lastly, if your willing to sacrifice it, sleep less. i think all that stuff about 8+ hours a day is crap, there's no way anybody can get anything done like that. i sleep 4-5 hours. it was NOT fun adjusting and i even have to take a nap after practice every now and then. but your body can adjust to most conditions. hope that helps.

Oh yea. I totally agree with what Der Laufer said. Try scheduling your time. It helps a lot. And whenever you can, ask your coaches, teachers, etc, to give you a weekly or monthly itenerary so you can see an overview of what you're going to do and what needs to be done. That way, you see see when you're going to the next competition, how long you'll be there, and how much time you'll have to work on your school work. And don't even TRY to do a giant essay the day before. DON'T even think about it. Trust me. And if you can, try to spend at least an hour doing something you enjoy, a recreational thing, AT LEAST once a week. Daily would be even better, but as long as you treat yourself to fun, then you'll find you can handle more challenges than forcing yourself to work.

As for me, I did AP last semester, I'm in Band and Art, and is planning to take IB next year, so yes, it helps me a lot considering I have band auditions and solos every few weeks, and art competitions to boot. haha. Even so, I really am considering on joining soccer next year.

It may seem tough now, but structuring your time is an important lesson for college. Like Der suggested, plan out your day. and yes, while 8 hours isn't necessary, I highly recommend getting at least 5 hours a night (*cough*on average*cough*), 6 if you can manage it. Also, I found sometimes that I could do some homework in class when the teacher was going over something I knew. Granted, you have to make sure you actually know what they're talking about, and it's best to still pay attention to them sort of and if they don't like you doing that then...well, that's a problem. But in some classes it works.

yeah i can often finish up some of my homework in other classes, if i can get away with it. some teachers think it's really disrespectful and others just don't care or at least don't say anything about it.

luckily i don't have much extracurricular stuff, b/c i seriously think i would die on 5 hrs of sleep a night!! (i often get about 7 but i can definitely function much better on 9 :) ) but i know that's not possible for a lot of people depending on how many things you're involved in.

so i guess you have to decide when you can find the time and what you might have to give up a little of to get things done.

ha nymcha you can definitely adjust to it given time. just think about how much more time you'd have with 3 hours less sleep (= O) just kidding sleep is good take it if you need it.

there are a ton of great advice here. ask for a weekly/monthly itinerary so you can plan stuff ahead of time. i'm planning my weekly schedule right now = D another thing that might help is get some willing friends to form a study group or somethin of the sort for exchanging notes, hw help, test prep sessions etc. most of my friends are unwilling to do so, but they're lazy @$$es haha.

this is y i do cross country because its a really easy sport and your no so tired when you get back home so you can do ur homework without falling asleep. i noticed that a lot of AP students or honor students join cross country

Well, it also helps that cross country is the best sport ever. :-P