" I will be a varsity athlete at the school I go to for my sport."
- Just a warning. Stay flexible in your pursuits. My D. decided NOT participate in varsity despite of the strong pursuit of few coaches out there. She even stayed overnight with one team and said that she would fit there very well. Good planning on her part, she could not even do the club sport, she tried for freshman year. She was just way too busy with everything at college, medical ECs piled up, job, other things. Then you have to prep. for the MCAT in junior year on top of all what is going on and travel to medical school interviews in senior year. She had to drop her sport as much as she loved it and was very good at it and was involved from 5 y o all thru HS. You will need to maintain very high GPA, your goal is an A in every class. So, it is good that you are pursuing your personal interest, but the time limitations may dictate otherwise, just stay flexible.
@MiamiDAP I agree, that is why I ended up in d3 athletics as compared to d1.
I would feel bad giving up the sport since the af has been a huge help in getting accepted and with the fa process.
The school also does a good job balancing the pre-med athletes as I read about and met a couple that were already accepted into med school, while having been key components in their teams.
Edit: I also won’t have a job. My family and I decided I just need to do school and my sport since those are the two important things. Not having a job frees up 30 or so hours a week, basically the time needed for my sport. So it is a trade off.
Your daughter very well may have been able to compete had she not been working, I have a serving job and on top of that school and my sport. It is very busy, and the job is not very welcome lol.
I will coach during the summers, nice thing is that I can make $40-$60 an hour coaching. That makes it a lot easier to find money for extra stuff and some self help.
“Your daughter very well may have been able to compete had she not been working” - First, she had the best job on campus, I would advise her to drop something else before she would turn down this job, She was a Supplemental Instructor ot Chem. prof., the job that she did not even apply to, she was hand picked by the prof. This job was not even the biggest of her time commitments. Actually, it saved lots of time because D. did not need to prep. chemistry for the MCAT after the job. Many other activities were much more time consuming than her job, according to her and she did not want to give up any of them. But some of them will be required for you also, the medical ECs. Her sport will stay with her forever. She will use it for work out when she has time. Now as a first year resident, she does not.
@MiamiDAP well to be fair, you didn’t say that. You said she worked, not that she was a ta basically which isn’t exactly a normal job.
When someone says their kid works it is pretty safe to assume it’s not a prestigious 1 in a million job like that, but rather a chipotle worker or server.
I am not going to hold a job though, I know that much. The school accepted me to play a sport and I will return on my part by doing my best to excel for them.
I am saying just stay flexible. Some amazing opportunity may come up and you may re-think your entire commitment list and schedule. Or it may happen that additional requirements need to be fulfilled. I am not sure at all how you are going to keep your sporting schedule when you have to travel to medical school interviews in senior year. D. had to re-schedule a lot and she did not have a sport commitment. She had to re-schedule taking the exams (not all profs will be very flexible about it), she had re-schedule her Supplemental Instruction sessions (no, she was not a TA, she was an SI, it was a normal paid job at her college, it was not 1 in a million job, she was offered a job and she took it and it was not her most time consuming activity), she had to re-schedule her internship schedule at medical research lab and she had to do all of it several times. In addition, she had to drop one of her minors being only 2 classes short of completion and completely change her fall semester schedule after registration. She had to do that because one of her medical schools added to pre-reqs after D. applied there. Lots of things may happen, you will be very busy, it is not going to be like in HS, you will have to stay open to changes, you do not want to miss an amazing opportunities that may come along. Best wishes!
@MiamiDAP It was an incredible job opportunity, most of us wouldn’t count that as a normal job. Earlham is 2 hours away from the furthest school in the hcac, there isn’t any travel except a spring break trip and commute to ncaa tournament in may.
I realize I have to be flexible, but the coach helped me a lot in admissions and with financial aid, not a scholarship, but talking to them about some stuff I have going on. It wouldn’t be right for me to quit when I basically owe my acceptance to him. The team I am going to has had many succesful athletes graduate and go to med school so I am comforted by that fact. The small school environment makes it great and the professors, from talking to them, are very helpful and make it work with your schedule. There are like 10 or so kids in the pre med courses after freshman and sophomore year so they get really good time with the professors.
In any case, there’s no obligation to apply in June Junior year. You can easily apply in June Senior year and do a glide year, working on research during the year after college or doing whatever, or not graduate right away, taking a few classes while playing your 5th year…
I agree that you SHOULD NOT renege on your athletic commitment. In addition, D3 in not the same environment as where Miamidap’s daughter went to school, so it wouldn’t affect your schedule as much (you’ll basically play August-November). And Earlham is very supportive indeed. A great choice for premed.
@MYOS1634 Yeah, the coach threw my name into the pot for fa and extra scholarships. He was amazing and really did a tremendous amount of work. I have almost full tuition paid for.
Yeah, d3 sports are much more relaxed. I am excited to do play and study, I have met many pre med athletes and they are very good at managing their time at the school.
I have a while to plan for applications, I was thinking about doing research over the summer or an internship in a nearby city, I have already found my first summer internship, well an option, near home because of some connections. I would have food and lodging paid for as well.
I am very excited to go there in the fall this year. My season is also very short in the fall, ends at the end of september with only 2 competitions. Spring season is february-march with ncaa in may. So that will be easy as all the players are able to do their work and barely miss afternoon classes some days.