Abstract: The present study used the daily diary method to investigate adolescents' time use patterns and feelings of role fulfillment in the social and academic domains, to address the question of how high achieving adolescents are able to have both social and academic success. An ethnically, generationally, and socio-economically diverse sample of over 700 ninth grade students completed an in-class questionnaire as well as short 3-page checklists each night for 14 consecutive nights, providing information about their daily activities and feelings. While high achieving students spent more time studying than low achieving students, this extra time did not directly come from spending time with their friends. Instead, high achieving students spent more time overall in these two domains than low achieving students. One way in which high achieving students were able to do this was by being more predictable in their time management. Specifically, the difference between weekends and weekdays in terms of time use was much more pronounced for high achieving than low achieving students. Further, on a daily basis, high achieving students were less likely to spend time studying when they spent time with their friends, a relationship not found for low achieving students. Their management of time allowed high achieving students to feel just as much success in their role as a friend as their lower achieving peers while also feeling like more of a good student. While there were sex and ethnicity differences in many of the main effects examined, which were consistent with those reported in previous research, the role of GPA in time use and feelings of role fulfillment was remarkably similar for boys and girls and members of all ethnic groups.