@thumper1 Here’s my post:
They play because they love it and the team is their family. It’s a big decision to give that up.
Again, day 3 for me on this forum, learning the ropes here. I appreciate the value here and I’d like to provide a bit of value where I can. The D1 Sports experience at a top school is unique and that I can speak to.
With regards to schools, I used to think schools like Liberty or Pensacola Christian (and similar) wouldn’t get a student into a US MD school due to their often low regard among the population - and pretty low ranking (are they even ranked?). FWIW, neither school suits our family even though we’re Christian (just not really aligned with their views). However, each year a handful of student from my high school choose Liberty. My current med school lad has gone on medical missions trips with students from both schools (and others) as other participants - premed wannabes. There are students who later get accepted to med school. US/MD
If those schools can get a student there even with low regards from many on CC or in the population, I find it difficult to believe any school can’t as long as the student does their end of getting a high MCAT/GPA and ECs.
Personally, I still recommend pre-med students choose other schools, but that’s because I personally think they’ll make better doctors if they’re exposed to a wider range of humans and learn how similar our species is (with variances of course). I tell them this is my reason. They choose their schools on their own.
My personal guess as to why any school can work is because med schools want to train doctors for the whole population. To do this they try to get stellar candidates from the whole population. Some med schools might discriminate against School A or School B, but they all don’t. This is how I ended up advising future students to check with the undergrad pre-med dept to see where recent grads were accepted. If they’re happy with that list and accomplish the same stats/ECs they have decent odds for a similar outcome. If they aren’t happy with the list, it’s a caution flag to look elsewhere.
YMMV
I’m only talking about getting into my school/schools like mine: research oriented top 20 medical schools with quaternary care hospitals as their main training site. There are no hard and fast rules. If I haven’t heard of a school, I might take a glance at its wikipedia page to get a sense as to what kind of school it is (especially if the GPA/MCAT are not top notch) but I’m not doing a deep dive. Unlike college admissions, we are not full time admissions people, I simply don’t have time for that especially when the majority of our applicants are from the schools I do know.
The point I’m making is that there is a certain gravitas that the more reputable schools have. When the department chair at Harvard writes in an LOR that this student is “hands down the best student I have ever encountered” I don’t hesitate in thinking that the kid must be something special. When an assistant professor at north south east west state U says it, I wonder how they really compare to the kid from UCLA who is “in the top 10% of students I have encountered.” I’ve seen LORs from people at less reputable schools even reference their previous appointments at more reputable schools when they make these statements because they know that I’m doing exactly that.
Oh, and regarding D1 athletics. Yes, it’s a boost at many schools. I was still getting asked about it when applying for residency 8 years later!
Does that become more important if you go into sports medicine?
@ucbalumnus probably not but I wouldn’t really know. I don’t think anyone cared about my actual athletic talent or knowledge of my sport. It’s more about what being an athlete at that level requires in terms of balancing responsibilities, teamwork, leadership, perseverance, dedication, improvisation, etc. Although if you go into Ortho, I have heard your bench press needs to be higher than your step 1 score or you have no shot at getting an interview.