<p>First let me start by saying I’m posting this for a friend. She has been accepted into both Brown and Claremont McKenna. She has been in contact with both the track coaches and plans to run track at both places, however academics have always been her first priority and she worries that at Brown she will be forced to put academics aside for athletics. She also doesn’t like that meets are far away and she worries that her social life will be compromised at brown if she’s gone Friday and Saturday during the long season.
At Claremont, while track is serious, the meets are closer and her breaks are not cut off. They also gave her a significant amount of money (~10,000) a year. That being said, my friend is not sure what she is interested in, and brown is obviously the place for exploration, while Cmc is a little more focused (poly Sci and Econ). I was hoping some of you could shed some light on her situation, especially if any of you run at brown!</p>
<p>To address her first concern, for the majority of student-athletes, academics are almost never secondary to their sport; these students were still accepted as Brown students. Because Brown doesn’t award athletic scholarships, it just means that your sport is a passion for you. It’s true that for at the college level, the practices and meets get more intense, but as an athlete in high school, it’s probably always been the case for her that she’s had to balance both. In the end, it’s just good time management. </p>
<p>Secondly, about the social life, if there are any “cliques” at Brown, it would be between the athletes and the non-athletes. Due to the athletic demands and schedule, relatively few are willing or able to go out of their way to socialize outside of the network associated with athletics. Not to generalize because there are plenty of people who don’t do that, but that’s just the overall atmosphere. But of the few athletes I know in Track, I’ve rarely found it the case that they were unable to have a social life due to their sport. </p>
<p>I’ll let someone else address the poly-sci/econ question only because I’m not familiar enough to answer it.</p>
<p>My D is finishing her 1st year at Brown and is on the track team. First and foremost, academics come first at Brown. Case in point. The 4x400 relay was supposed to go to Penn Relays last week but because some of the team traveled to UFL the weekend before, and because it was the last week of classes, they opted not to go. This was a decision made by the athletes and 100% supported by the sprint coach. Most away meets are only one day and not all of the team travels. Only a handful of sprinters were asked to come back early from winter break to train. If your friend was not a “recruited” athlete, she may or may not be one that travels for meets.</p>
<p>My D has a great mix of friends both on and off the track team. She even found the time to go through rush and join a sorority which has added a whole new group of friends. </p>