My son is a junior in HS, and has been doing club swimming for 8 years and has been doing great in HS swimming. He has been a minimum of 10 hours per week practicing all these years. He is a decent swimmer (Sectional cuts) and would definitely get a accepted to swim for D3 schools if he applies to regular BS/BA programs. I mentioned D3 schools here because I think D1 school would demand too much practice time especially with high demand practice hours like swimming so we don’t want to go there since he wants to apply to BS/MD programs.
His GPA is good (4.25 and should be higher by the end of this year), SAT 1420 (need improvement), has community service, research, medical related volunteer, NHS, etc.
He does want to swim in college (at least the first 1-3 years and probably unrealistic as he gets into the Med program). How does the admission office look at him who wants to go for BS/MD and swim at the same time? Does expressing the desire to swim hurt or help him through the application process?
TIA
First of all, to maintain a D3 sports and BS/MD is going to be hard. The academics of Premed or the BS part of BS/MD is going to be pretty intensive. It is not unheard of that some people can do it but most can’t. You should look up a YouTube vlog about some medical school students who were in football.
Secondly, with SAT 1420 it is going to be tough to be admitted in to BS/MD. You can try, but also need to apply for some regular schools as backup. Most of the D3 BS/MD schools are top schools in BS/MD and they won’t look at an SAT 1420.
Thank you for your response. He has a few coaches from the BS MD schools reach out to him. He has been too busy with school, SAT, and SAT subject exams to deal with that as of this time. And he knows his best bet is to improve the SAT scores. However, I wonder if the coaches have any influence on his application as his ranking is 1st - 3rd as of right now on his swim events (even comparing to the swimmers at these schools, and he is only a junior in HS) … I think the coaches don’t have much influence… But I also read somewhere that colleges will consider athlete students with lower GPA or SAT scores so I am not sure…
I agree that doing a sport and BS/MD program will be difficult in terms of time management. BS/MD programs are typically accelerated and require maintaining a certain GPA to continue with the program. I also agree that an SAT of 1420 probably won’t make the cut for BS/MD admissions.
How much influence a coach has with undergrad admissions varies by school, and sometimes varies by sport within the same school. If your S is offered a slot at a D3 school, likelihood of admission is high…this is where student-athletes with lower GPAs or test scores may still gain admission if they are a top recruit.
OTOH, Athletic coaches will have little, if any, say in admission to BS/MD programs, as those admission decisions are typically not made by the undergrad admissions staff.
The only thing your S can do is talk with the coaches, his undergrad admissions reps and the BS/MD admissions staff to see where he fits athletically, whether a BS/MD student would have time to play a sport and go from there. Good luck.
Thank you @mwfan192 and @artloversplus for your suggestions.
I understand playing sport will be very difficult when one is admitted to the BS MD program. I have been trying to do research in this area to find out if students are successful in doing so. The question that I have is if he has been practicing 2.0-3.5 hours a day, 5-6 days a week year round since he was 8 years old, maintain a 4.5 GPA, and rank top 1% in his class, can he do the same when he is in college? On other hand, with a SAT score of 1420, it leads me to believe that may be his grades were inflated in HS and he won’t be able to do well in college if he doesn’t spend more time studying.
The bottomline is, first thing first, he needs to improve his SAT scores and do well in the SAT subject exams, then decide if and where to apply.
He will also need call the coaches this summer…
@upstream
Thank you for the offer. I’m sorry, I am new to this and not sure how to pm you. How do I do that?
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Thank you.
@gradedu
Just sent you a pm
If you have any questions, please let me know. Good luck!
@upstream - how’s your son liking his MD portion?
I just sent a pm.
Just want to provide some update on the progress of my S talking to college coaches. We are learning that there are a number of BS MD students who play D3 sports (football and swimming) and are doing well. Most of the D3 coaches say the games are normally on Friday afternoon or Saturday so the students don’t miss classes. Most of the games are within 2-3 hours drive.
The coaches at D3 are fully aware of students who are in the science majors and likely to have labs in the afternoon. Also, their practices may be the afternoon during lab hours. However, if they are, there are normally two practices so they can go to either one.
Surprisingly, every single one of them that we’ve talked to has a very good knowledge of what BS MD is and have students or know of students who are in the program. The coaches even advised us what to concentrate on during the application process - essays, work on your essays to differentiate yourself from others. So far none of the coaches say they have any influence on the admission except “admission office will know that you apply because I will let them know”.
Are there that many BS/MD programs at D3 schools? Can he afford to be that picky with only applying to schools with the joint program that are also D3?
I don’t think the D3 school have that much lighter of a practice schedule than the D1 programs. Swimming is swimming, and requires time in the pool (and weight room). Travel requirements may be different (although sometimes D1 teams can fly and not bus to the local) but I really doubt Middlebury swimmers are only swimming 10 hours a week.
@twoinanddone
There are not that many D3 schools with the BS MD program, but more than 10. I do agree with you: swim is swim. Practice and gym time is expected about 14-20 per week + meet time. This is similar to what he is doing in club swimming now. However, D1 schools are likely to expect more practice time. In addition, he is likely to be at the bottom of the totem pole so why go there with swimming. If he gets into a BS MD school that happens to have a D1 swim program, we’ll reach out the coach to understand the expectations. But his preference is D2 or D3 swim program.
Schools at all levels have a limited number of hours they can practice per week. Where the extra time comes in for D1 is team meetings, travel, activities (community service, ‘bonding’), watching film (do swimmers watch film?).
My D played D2 and I don’t think her time, especially during the season, was any less than it would have been at a D1 school except that her team played 11 of their 16 games at home and 3 of their other 5 within 2 hours of the school so just a short bus ride. That really made a BIG difference; the first year that wasn’t the case and they were exhausted after 3 weekend trips in a row.
If he really wants the BS/MD program, I think you have to get into that first and then worrying about the swimming after admissions. You can ask the coaches if they can help with admissions, but I doubt it. My daughter was in engineering, and she had to get into those programs on her own; the coaches could help with admission to the school but not into the major.
Swimmer rarely ever watch film. Games are normally 50/50 home/away for the schools we talked to.
Thanks for your input.
Most schools do have a 50/50 split of games or meets, but D was lucky. She played in Florida and many schools from the northeast are willing to spend spring break traveling to Florida to play 3-4 games. The season can start much earlier and they get the bulk of the season in before finals. It worked out very well. She was also in a conference where the schools were pretty close together so the away games were still close and no need for overnights. She rarely missed classes for games or travel.
It really made a huge difference. That first year when they traveled a lot was hard. Too much time studying on a bus.
D3 swimming is very different from D1 swimming. D3 swimming is not incompatible with pre-med, but it will be very difficult to complete all of the required components of the undergrad portion of the BS/MD program to remain in the program. I don’t think I’d recommend it. Instead, I’d recommend a club team for more flexibility.
Dedicated weekly swimming hours are not too different between DI/II/III, at least per the NCAA student-athlete self-report survey that is conducted every 3-4 years. See 2015 (the most recent one) here: http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/GOALS_convention_slidebank_jan2016_public.pdf
Slides 55, 56, 57 show women’s median weekly swimming hours spent in-season as 30 (DI), 29 (DII) and 28 (DIII)…still a lot of hours no matter what the major.
It can be at some schools, especially if the student intends on a science major…I know of some D3 coaches that will not allow students on their teams to have majors that require labs and/or other classes that are typically held in late afternoons/early evenings. Certainly not a majority of coaches, but OP definitely has to understand this potential barrier at any schools on the list.