[Kate*]

Welcome to TH, I feel for you. I'm not going to tell you that ACT scores aren't important, but I will say that there isn't as much emphasis on them as high schools would have you believe. Especially with AP classes, if you do your best, I'm sure you'll do well enough.

The next thing I'm going to say made me mad when someone said it to me: We have a lot more time to do things than we realize. Taking time for yourself is important, but even using the time in between things that doesn't feel like it's that much time could help lighten the load. Use your study halls if you have them and make yourself a schedule. Take out time for sleep, school, and work and see how much time is left. If your going to try to reduce your hours, I would start with the weekdays since it might be easier for your parents to give you back that hour or two during the week than for them to give you a whole day off. If you make an actual schedule you could also show your parents exactly how much you have to do and how long it really takes so they can have a better understanding of how "hard" it really is.

Also something else someone said to me that would've made me mad, I think this will help you develop time management because if you plan to go to college, you'll need that skill, especially if you plan to work at the same time. If you're in AP classes, it's similar to what you'll be dealing with. Imagine working 5-8 hours a day then going to classes for 4 hours and having 4 hours of homework. They're spread out better, but the assignments are bigger so you have about the same amount of work.