<p>I have been talking to coaches with Dartmouth, Brown and UPenn and want to play football there and go PreMed for psychology. Where should I go</p>
<p>Whichever you like best, they’e all great schools, they’ll all prepare you well or med school, and none of them has much of a football team!</p>
<p>Well I am worried about the social life too. Which schools party hard and which are a bunch of geeks? I know that all are great schools but I also want to have some fun.</p>
<p>Hahaha, few geeks at these 3. Dartmouth and Penn especially party. Dartmouth would probably win on that front, it used to make the Playboy list of party schools in my day, but visit them.</p>
<p>These three are all super social Ivies. You really can’t go wrong.</p>
<p>Do you mean that you want to major in psychology and take the required pre-med courses for med school? </p>
<p>*Well I am worried about the social life too. Which schools party hard and which are a bunch of geeks? I know that all are great schools but I also want to have some fun. *</p>
<p>Will you have time for Div I football (even if not great - wouldn’t this be demanding?), a pre-med curriculum and Psych major, and lots of parties?</p>
<p>*
Well i got a 1820 SAT not great and a 3.5 GPA and still am going to take my SAT II.*</p>
<p>To be honest, your stats are low for ivies. I think you may not end up with a strong GPA at an ivy because you’re going to be “low man” on the academic totem pole there. A lower GPA could keep you out of med school.</p>
<p>It sounds like your only interest in ivies is being able to go to an ivy by using football as a ticket in. </p>
<p>You’d be better off going where your stats are good for a school so that you’ll have a better chance at a high GPA.</p>
<p>Even if you go ahead with seeking ivy admission thru football, protect yourself by applying to some safety schools. </p>
<p>How much will your parents contribute towards college?</p>
<p>If mom2 has your stats right, I’d have to agree that none of these may be a good match. You need strong grades for med school and getting them at an ivy while playing fb would be tough. And while ivies are generous with aid for the lower income, if you’re not low income you’d probably be better off at a school with fb scholarships. Brown and Penn have lower end aid for ivies.</p>
<p>You’ve been “talking to coaches” is that the same as being recruited? It may seem like a subtle difference but them talking to you is a much bigger deal than you talking to them. I’m not exactly sure where mom2 got her stats but I agree with the other posters that 3.5/1820 without coach’s support or URM status will be a tough admit.</p>
<p>To clear up one fact, the Ivy League is Division 1-AA (or whatever it’s called now) which is decidedly below the Div 1 level. There would be a time commitment but nothing on the level of playing for a Division 1 program like Penn State or Michigan; another example, D1 teams play 12 games per season vs. 10 games in the Ivies…</p>
<p>Football at an Ivy (and most other sports) is still a huge time commitment. Even though the teams are not particularly good, the alums care about them and there is a lot of pressure to do the best they can in the games. Do not underestimate the demands that are made on an Ivy varsity athlete.<br>
It is possible to be in Wharton or in pre-med, but it is not an easy path and it might be too much for the OP. Another option is to get through college and then take a year for the required pre-med courses that weren’t taken. (Post Bac year)</p>
<p>Div. 1-AA applies only to football and not other sports and isn’t exactly “below” Div. 1 so much as it is a subdivision of Div. 1. It’s a part of Div. 1 designated for some of the traditionally low-key and non-scholarship schools such as the Ivy League. I agree that Div. 1-AA teams are nowhere near as good as big-time programs such as Penn State or Michigan, but then they don’t aspire to be.</p>
<p>And MomofWildChild is right. Whether you call it Div 1 or 1-AA, Ivy schools still take their football seriously and team members will still be expected to work very hard.</p>
<p>Might look at some Patriot League schools-Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but it seems like this student wouldn’t really be happy at an ivy, but thinks football is kind of a backdoor way in.</p>
<p>I don’t know how Harvard recruits athletes, but I know that Tufts required my nephew to raise his ACT 31 to be an admitted athlete. When he got an ACT 33, he was admitted. </p>
<p>If this football athlete is not a URM, I wonder how lenient they will be with his stats unless he’s some super star that is needed for a certain position.</p>
<p>I’m wondering if this student - who wants to go to med school - would do better elsewhere. However, if his parents may not pay much, unless he gets a football scholarship some place else, other schools may not be affordable.</p>
<p>Med schools are tough, even at a top schools they want you to be top quarter of class. I can tell you my own kids who were close to the top at a top high school and had very high SATs work like dogs to be top 20% at an ivy.</p>
<p>mom2- Tufts is Division 3 athletics which is very different from D1. D1, even the non-scholarship schools, does tend to offer more admission help to the recruited athletes and will accept lower scores/GPA from a recruit- especially in certain sports and for top recruits. That said, I know a number of athletes who have gone to Tufts with lower than 31 ACT. A lot depends on the coach, the athlete and the sport.</p>
<p>" Even though the teams are not particularly good, the alums care about them…"</p>
<p>Football??
I suppose it depends on the school.
Harvard and Yale alums seem to care about that one game. About any others, not so sure. Columbia alums better not care, because their football team went for an entire millenium without winning a single game. I went to Cornell, and I don’t know of alums caring about football. Hockey, we care. Now if any team miraculously got notably good, like the basketball team recently, then all of a sudden us fair-weather alums would start jumping on the bandwagon. But absent that, football? Nahh. </p>
<p>There may be some changes in the football scene, and maybe people on campus care more now than they used to, I wouldn’t know that for sure. But that wouldn’t affect us alums, who aren’t there now, and whose impressions of what to care about were set long ago.</p>
<p>One wouldn’t necessarily revel in being the doormat, I suppose. Although Columbia alums might disagree.</p>
<p>I guess if a school was historically relatively good in football, even if just within the league, maybe more alums would be conditioned to care a bit.
I don’t know who that would be, maybe Penn?</p>
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<p>Penn or Harvard. In the past decade each has won or shared the Ivy League football title four times.</p>
<p>Most alums did not attend their school during the past decade.</p>
<p>^^True, but the last decade is the alums’ most recent relevant experience with rooting for their school’s football team and developing a school identity as an Ivy football power.</p>
<p>Heck, if you look back far enough, say to the 1970s, you can find periods when Dartmouth, of all places, was often Ivy League champ. But that’s very unlikely to form very much of Dartmouth’s identity for alums today, because their football teams have been stinking the place up for the past decade or so.</p>
<p>Likewise, old alums from Harvard’s darker football days no doubt happily embrace Harvard’s current status as an Ivy football powerhouse.</p>
<p>Harvard had over 21,000 for its recent game against long-time rival Holy Cross. HC and Harvard first played in 1904! Ticket prices for the Holy Cross game were higher than the Crimson’s Ivy opponents excluding the Yale game. HC has a very good football fanbase for a small LAC.</p>
<p>*Harvard had over 21,000 for its recent game *</p>
<p>21,000? Is that high? I went to a high school football game last week that had more than that.</p>