An HU baseball coach expressed interest at a recruiting showcase.
My S is excited by the propsect, but I had advised him to only consider D3
due to a somewhat lower practice/travel time commitment. I was already
concerned that even D3 was bit much for engineers, but there are some D3 teams
with engineers and other STEM majors on the roster. Harvard has 3 of over 30
in Eng/Comp Sci/Biology. Rest of econ/gov majors, which is more typical of D1 teams.
This is often sited as a problem for STEM, lab time conflicts specifically, overall load of
work generically.
My son would be at the low end grade wise, not an easy admit, but in the athletic range.
I am concerned the work, academic competition and practice/travel time is going to be way
too much, thoughts and experience would be helpful.
Your son should speak to the Harvard baseball coach and ask for the names and contact information of several baseball players to get their feelings on the issue. Recruited athletes that stick with a sport find a balance between sports and academic work. Those players that cannot find a balance, usually quit the team. That doesn’t make the coaches happy, but it’s not unheard of for a recruited athlete to drop their sport midway through their 4 years because they are finding it difficult to do both.
MIT is D3, I think. @blevine
Baseball coach usually suggests recruits to consider other area of study, simply because STEM has labs that players won’t be able to make up. Especially, when team is on 5 or 7 days road trip. STEM student/ball player…it will be very difficult but not impossible. I remember 49ers had a player back in the 80/90s was a Med student at Stanford therefore it is not impossible!
This particular school’s coach indicated “we have engineers”
(I checked, they had 1 which could be a reflection of fact
that it is a small engineering program in a liberal arts school).
Did not try to talk him out of his plans, but did question
if the commitment is there (to the hours and to this school,
indicating that they lose stem recruits to d3 schools).
Yes people have turned down Harvard
