<p>What kind of leeway would I get GPA-wise? I wasn't planning on trying to get recruited but after talking to my coach it seems like I have nothing to lose (try to get recruited at Ivys. I am ONLY going to try to get recruited at Ivys and no other schools). </p>
<p>Please let me know and also, how hard it would be to balance both. </p>
<p>Is there usually time to do research, study for the MCAT, get clinical exp., etc. playing DI baseball?</p>
<p>What kind of leeway would I get GPA-wise?</p>
<p>Are you asking if med schools will give you leeway on your GPA if you’re playing a Div 1 sport?</p>
<p>^Yes, that’s what I meant. Will they view the GPA in better light and be more understanding?</p>
<p>While I’m not an athlete, I’m friends with many of them through my job tutoring student-athletes at my big state school (NCAA Division IA).</p>
<p>I bet your future school has a lot in place to ensure athletes succeed academically–mine, for example, offers one-on-one tutoring for anything the athlete needs (free), early registration (free), books and materials (free), academic counseling, and an entire professional staff literally exists to support student-athletes from an academic perspective. </p>
<p>That said, the two students I know who are premeds (both baseball players, actually!) are extremely bummed that they ended up basically having to choose between their sport or being a “good” premed–with all the practices, games, obligations (lifting, meetings, conditioning) there just wasn’t adequate time left over to do things like shadow, do research, or volunteer much in the community (especially when you take into account things like, oh eating, studying, sleeping). Additionally, most clinics and labs run normal business hours, so being busy all day with classes, obligations, and practices makes it insanely difficult to get experience with health care or with research etc. These guys are incredibly smart and very motivated–they just couldn’t make it work even though they could successfully complete premed requirements (science classes).</p>
<p>They’ve both decided to apply after they graduate so they can have time to develop some of the “soft” aspects of their applications that being an athlete didn’t permit them to do.</p>
<p>Its the same thing as your undergrad school’s reputation.</p>
<p>In other words, if you still need to have a decent gpa. Playing D1 baseball won’t make-up for a bad gpa. However, if you have a good gpa and you managed to play D1 baseball, it will help your application significantly.</p>
<p>If you want to play sports you can always take a year off to build up your resume.</p>
<p>I think the OP is more concerned about his GPA…probably particularly his science GPA …rather than his ECs.</p>
<p>^No, I wanted to get an idea of how tough it would be to be a premed (ECs, research, clinical experience, mcat, etc.) and play DI baseball </p>
<p>Also I wanted to know if I would get leeway on the gpa from med schools and how much so.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>I doubt you’d get much, if any, leeway. In the end, it might be a “nudge”…which means if there are 2 kids with the same/similar stats, you might get the nudge. </p>
<p>many undergrads have “distractions” while in school…some are married, some have kids, some have near-full time jobs, etc. I don’t see why playing a sport would get any significant consideration for lacking in GPA. </p>
<p>However, I was surprised last year at the honors awards day at my kids’ university. A football player was honored for being a top scholar/athlete and was heading to med school. He wasn’t a top player or anything…don’t even know how much playing time he ever had…but certainly practices were demanding for a student who was on the National Championship team. He had a 3.8 GPA. Don’t know what his MCAT was.</p>
<p>You won’t get any GPA leeway but you will get EC leeway. You will still need clinical experience and some volunteering can never go wrong but medschools appreciate the time commitment that goes into being an athlete and will look upon that favorably. The same as someone who spends all their time in a lab for example.</p>
<p>Hm, from what I take, it is very rare/hard for a DI athlete to pull off the ‘well-rounded’ premed package. If this is the case, is it even worth it to pursue recruitment at Ivys (which is probably going to be very hard as it is for me this late in the process, but maybe I could get a ‘boost’ at these schools even if I’m not recruited?) if I could just focus on academics?</p>
<p>I’m fine with not playing baseball. I love coaching and umpiring, so I stay in contact with the sport I love but it just seems like it’s not worth it.</p>
<p>Academics are my number one priority so I really don’t want to jeopardize that. Just looking for opinions from you posters…you all have been very helpful so far.</p>
<p>Well, if you like coaching and umpiring and can get your baseball “fix” from that, I bet you could put it together into some really cool experiences. For example:</p>
<p>Say in your undergrad university’s community there’s a community youth baseball league but kids from XYZ school don’t usually participate. You might start volunteering at XYZ school, getting to know the kids, and fielding a team that you coach. Then you could stay involved with the league in which you coach by also umpiring, which might give you some extra cash too.</p>
<p>Kids aren’t your thing? Could be elderly or special-needs or high school kids at risk for dropping out. Anyone, really. Everyone loves baseball!</p>
<p>Doing something like that would be cool and unique: lots of meaningful service and leadership with a population you care about using a sport you’re passionate about. Bonus points if you can tie it into something else: perhaps the kids you work with are also poor, so they have limited access to good health care, so then you decide it might be cool to do some health policy research about expanding coverage of state programs for more kids. </p>
<p>That’s the kind of thing I’ve noticed among applicants at the elite schools where I’ve interviewed. They basically found a “theme” (yours could be baseball) and then worked from that in terms of leadership, service, and research. It doesn’t even necessarily all have to be medical: you just want to be able to show, with lots of evidence, that you are a caring, compassionate person and that you have the dedication necessary to put in the hard work to be a doctor. </p>
<p>I just made this example up in the past 2 minutes, so I have no idea how feasible those particular things would be, but I think you get the gist.</p>
<p>
The keyword here is “not necessarily all.” At least for most applicants whose ECs are not particularly astonishing, I believe a significant portion of the ECs need to be tied to medical.</p>
<p>I suspect not all medical schools are the same in term of their admission policy. Maybe some try hard to find fault of your application, no matter how small the fault may be. Some try to find some good parts of your application and tend to be more forgiving if your application has some weak point.</p>
<p>A couple of years ago, an applicant who was very successful in his application (got into multiple top-10 schools – none of them in Ca though. Was admitted into H, Y, P but not JHU.) actually worried about his medical related ECs right before his application. He posted at SDN (if we believe him) he had like 50 hours only. However, he was really shining in his volunteering ECs (helping the homeless.) He is not an URM and has a good stats (like 3.93/39.) I suspect a very good volunteering EC (but not most other ECs, like research) could help cover up some weakness in medical ECs.</p>
<p>@Kristin5792, you read my mind. </p>
<p>I am really interested in a BS-MD program at Wayne State and if I attended that program and school (if I am admitted, of course), I was planning on using my love for baseball to help the poor and those without opportunity. (The school is in Detroit)</p>
<p>I was planning on trying to see if I could get the Wayne baseball team to host a ‘baseball camp’ and use half the money to raise awareness for a good cause (medically related) and use the other half to fund an inner city baseball team (which I would coach). I was hoping to do this multiple years and try to get the team to enter a few tournaments, etc.</p>
<p>I guess I will still go ahead and shoot some emails out to these coaches. It is likely that it is already too late, which in case all I could do is see if I could get some kind of ‘boost’ from the coach in admissions. If even that fails, from what I’ve read on these forums, if I don’t get into an Ivy that’s perfectly fine. </p>
<p>I might even chose a school like MSU over an Ivy anyways if I get the scholarships to make it attractive, although WSU’s BS-MD is my top choice. And, I’ve never been one about prestige anyways.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it sounds too ambitious at this point (a freshman trying to persuade the coach + team to hold a fundraising baseball camp), but that was an idea I had. Of course, I’ll continue to umpire in university too.</p>
<p>But as of now, I don’t know if it’s worth going through with the hassle of managing a DI sport and the premed life. Maybe just getting my ‘baseball fix’, as you so nicely put it, via other ways of getting involved is best.</p>
<p>There’s another student who has “good stats” (but not ivy quality) that posted a couple of months ago that he’s being recruited to an ivy for a sport. He also wants to be pre-med. In his case, I think it’s a big mistake for him to go ivy because chances are he will be one of the “low men on the totem pole” when it comes to grades in his classes. So, he may end up with an ivy degree, but if his goal is med school, a 3.25 GPA (or similar) isn’t going to get him in.</p>
<p>Viggy, sounds like a great plan. You’d be surprised how far a little bit of ambition and motivation can get you when you’re in college. People start treating you more like an adult and less like a kid–so your idea might actually take hold. If you can’t get WSU’s men’s team to help out, I bet there’s a YMCA, a community league, a high school team…endless opportunities. Make it happen and I’m sure you’ll be glad you did! </p>
<p>For what it’s worth, as a fellow college student, that type of event is TOTALLY something I would volunteer with. If WSU has a big Greek life, that might be another place to tap. Keep it on the back burner for now (you have more to worry about!), but in the future, feel free to PM me for support/ideas. I’ve done lots of things like this and love helping out!</p>
<p>Kristin</p>
<p>DD was a club sport athlete at her flagship school, in a year round sport which included travel to nationals. She also played varsity at her study abroad school.
As a club athlete she had none of the advantages Kristen mentioned, but she also could tell them she had to skip practice to study. As it worked out she did not play her senior year in order to have the time to seriously shadow and prepare for med school apps. Many of her friends were varsity athletes. She was able to do volunteering & MCAT study over the summer, so it all worked fine, but she really needed the senior year not playing her sport to consolidate her application. She also got all As, one B senior year, improving her GPA, which had had a few A-/B+ numbers bringing it down.</p>
<p>So, be a school athlete, do well, enjoy it, and, yes, your GP & ECs may be a bit lower, but have a plan and make sure you hit that 3.5 mark. Then your sports time commitment will show that you have the skills to balance a busy life.</p>