So my daughter just finished her freshman year at a very well regarded university (not quite an Ivy but close enough). Her school is Div 1 and she is a recruited athlete. She is interested in medical school but her GPA at this point is only a 3.0. My question is do medical schools see being a varsity athlete at this level as an asset and will this be taken into account or offset a less than stellar GPA?
@iwannabe_Brown was a varsity D1 athlete in college. He may have some insight on this topic.
One of D2’s HS and later med school classmates was a D1 varsity athlete, but he also had 3.8 GPA in BME from a HYPMS school plus a 518 MCAT. The athlete’s older brother was also a D1 varsity athlete, nationally ranked in his sport, but he had a lower GPA (3.3- 3.4ish, IIRC). He had to do post bacc before getting accepted into med school. (I know the family.)
It’s my understanding that athlete might get some leeway w/r/t ECs, but they’re still expected to have an in-range GPA for med school. That means a GPA > 3.6. (median accepted GPA for MD programs was > 3.7 last year)
A 3.0 GPA isn’t going to get an athlete any attention from med schools.
At my school, if that GPA drops below 3.0, no one will even know she’s a D1 athlete because no one will see the application. D1 athletics is a very valuable EC, but it is just that - an EC. I think WOWmom has it right, she’d get leeway on having a less diverse/extensive resume of ECs because of how much time the sport takes up, but the academics come first and have to be there.
On the other hand, if this is a non-ivy, can she/you afford to quit the team? How much of her aid is athletics?
Thank you both for your comments.
Quitting the team is not an option at this point. She is a rower and loves the sport. Also a significant amount of the cost of attendance is paid for by her athletic scholarship. We won’t qualify for much need-based aid.
Hopefully she will be able to raise her GPA in the remaining semesters.
No offset at all. Just like no offset for those taking more difficult majors.
When my son was in med school he had two classmates that were former D1 football players. NEITHER OF THEM did their prereqs while they were undergrads. They graduated with relatively easy majors, and after graduating they did postbaccs. This enabled them to graduate with high GPAs and then focus on the Premed prereqs when done with college sports
I second m2ck. The kid I know went on a recruited soccer team with premed intent, she changed her mind after graduation and become an investment banker. So, kids change mind all the time, med school is not for everyone.
Still can’t wrap my head around the idea that the lower GPA of say an engineering major is considered not as impressive as a higher GPA of an art history major. Engineering is so much more rigorous in my book.
Difficulty is in the eye of the beholder.
You’re assuming that all humanities majors lack rigor. They don’t, but they do require a different skills set than engineering or physics majors do.
A math/science oriented kid might find a philosophy or history major excruciatingly difficult because of the high volume of reading & writing required as well as the necessity of having a high tolerance for ambiguity/lack of a definitive “right” answer in those fields.
Besides non-science majors do not get a “free pass.” They still need a high science GPA for med school admission—which they have to achieve while taking significantly fewer science courses than a science or engineering major. A science/engineering major can get a few Bs or Cs in BCMP classes and still end up with sGPA med schools will accept. A non-science major doesn’t have that luxury.
Med school adcomms refuse to make value judgements about the worth or difficulty of particular undergrad majors. They understand the need and value of having physicians who come from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines because it contributes to a diversity of viewpoints in medicine.
(And lest you assume I’m being defensive because my kids were sociology or English majors or something, let me assure they weren’t. One was a physics & mathematics double major and one was biological neuroscience & mathematics double major.)
edited for clarity
Much of the Premed to med school process is counterintuitive. My son was an engineering major, but he knew he’d have to maintain a high GPA
Frankley we’re not even sure if Med school adcoms even notice what a person of the major is
Engineering is clearly harder than the humanities. This essay does a pretty good job explaining why: http://mugdown.com/2015/04/14/why-liberal-arts-is-super-dumb/
Hey no offense intended to all the humanities majors out there. Perhaps i should have compared time spent in class instead of perceived rigor of each major. The time spent in lab alone each week for a science major can be six hours or more depending on course load. This is not the case for most humanities majors and they seem to have much more time available for other ECs. Not saying one is better than the other.
Lab time is big commitment in intro/lower level science classes like gen chem, ochem, intro bio, intro physics etc. May I point out all pre meds take the same classes–even those with non-science majors? So during freshman-sophomore years I don’t see humanities pre-med having oodles of extra time.
Most UL science classes don’t have required labs. If a science/engineering major engages in lab-based research because they’re going to professional or graduate school, that’s a choice they make about how they spend their time. Research is an EC.
BTW, humanities students also engage in scholarly research; theirs just doesn’t require them to be in a chem lab to do it.
Actually you did. You’ve made several value judgements/statements indicating that engineering/science is “harder” (more valuable? more worthy? more challenging intellectually?) and more time consuming than other fields.
I don’t think med schools have an overabundance of admission staff. You can see below that schools get thousands, perhaps over 10K applicants, to fill a very,very limited number of seats. Med schools need a way to thin out the herd and GPAs/MCAT are a starting point. So many potentially good future MDs get screened out.
https://www.aamc.org/download/321442/data/factstablea1.pdf
I assume D’s overall GPA is 3.0? What is D’s sGPA? Knowing her sGPA would provide D clearer understanding of the hurdle she faces. (As a note I don’t think most of D’s engineering courses will count towards her sGPA.) She may have to wait until graduating to get her GPAs up to compettive levels.Good luck to D.
I have two kids. One finds the math/science easier, the other finds the liberal arts easier.
The math/science kid was an athlete. She didn’t get any bonus points toward academic awards, even those with an athletic component like The Conference Commissioner’s Honor Roll. Daughter’s school was a STEM school and the other schools in the conference are LACs. From D’s school, about half the athletes were on the honor roll, while at one of the other schools 100% of the team was on it. The rule is to have a 3.2, and they did not care if the major was chemical engineering or creative writing or general studies. Get the 3.2, you are on the honor roll, get a 3.1, you aren’t.
At my school the only person who’s full time job is admissions is the coordinator who answers applicants’ emails, schedules committee meetings, etc. Everyone who actually reads apps and votes on them is primarily a physician, scientist, educator, or some combination of the above. I would guess the majority of admissions people don’t even get compensated for their time spent on admissions - at least definitely not the first screeners and also (pretty sure) the interviewers that are not standing committee members required to be present at every adcom.
I totally disagree that Humanities major spend less time to prepare for class than the Science majors.
I can share my experiences in my UG, where I took a literature class in a WINTER session in a non-directional State University. The whole winter session lasted only 4 weeks, but the professor did not care, she went through the same material as in a regular semester. We met every day in that 4 week time span. The first day of class, she handed out a required reading consisted of 40 books with a major reading of a 400 page book of literature. We had to read on an average of 200 pages or 2 books every day and if you cannot follow the class discussion on those readings, points will be deducted. The final was a 50 page book review of the 400 page book of literature. It was the hardest class I have ever went through in my UG career.
I was an engineering major and it was hard. At least it was hard for me. But I remember some of my classmates really struggled with the humanities courses. Their GPA would be brought down by a history or music course. So everyone’s mind works different.