My D looking into top D1 program and planning to study Chemistry or Physics. As she was told, practice and fitness are everyday for many hours in the afternoon with fitness in the am most days. How do Science majors on teams get their lab requirements completed which are several hours a few times a week usually in the afternoons? Any parents or science majors or health majors please let me know. Thanks!
Every program is different. That question you need to ask the coach/coaches directly. Also ask coach how many science students in the past have been in the program. If any on team now ask if you can talk to them. Every school,every sport and every coach is different. Obviously, if they cannot accomadate her academically then you need to remove from your list.Some top D3 schools might be able to work better. Patriot league D1 might be more accomadating and D3 NESCAC
good luck
We asked that very question during my daughter’s official visits and received various answers. Some coaches didn’t come right out and say it was pretty obvious that they would prefer not to have to deal with science majors. The school our daughter ended up signing with is very accommodating and will work around class and lab schedules. She is a track athlete, though, and can practice without the rest of the team if that needed to happen. I imagine that is not the case in more team based sports.
My daughter is in engineering, but since it is a STEM school, there are usually a couple choices of labs and sometimes she has to take the one that is less popular. The reality is that between work-outs, classes and practice, she’s usually on campus most of every day anyway, so no big deal if she’s in a lab at 10 am or at 3 pm. Now that she’s a junior (and in a less popular major) sometimes the class is only offered at one time. She gets to take the class and gets to practice when she can. Many of the courses, especially the freshmen and sophomore math and science classes have quizzes on Fridays. If the team was leaving on a bus on a Friday, the coaches would arrange for the players to take their quiz with the first class of the day, at 8 am, and then the bus would leave at 9 or so. On daughter’s team of 22, there are about 5 in engineering and another 5+ in sciences, so half the team taking chem, calc, physics.
Remember, often athletes get to register first, so if there are a choice of lab times, the athlete might get first choice. Daughter was shut out of one as a freshman because of a registration snafu and put into a lab that conflicted with practice. A miracle (a miracle, I tell you) occurred and suddenly there was an opening that allowed her to get to practice on time.
We have asked this question at several schools on unofficial visits during my daughter’s junior year and, as others have mentioned, have received a variety of answers. One school has two afternoon practices, and if you have a lab on Wednesday, for instance, you go to the later practice even if you are normally in the earlier slot. Another school has a nursing student who takes all of her nursing clinicals during spring and summer when the team is finishing up its competition schedule (spring) or not not competing (summer). And every single school gets its athletes, even in a non-rev sport, into classes ahead of the general student population. We were surprised to find that, after freshman year, a lot of the students stay at school for the summer and train with the team. Presumably, they also can knock out some lab classes and clinicals during summers that they stay on or around campus. Every school seemed to have an academic advisor who works for the athletic department; you could probably get questions answered about your specific major through him or her.
The situation depends on the sport and the school. My son is D1 track athlete, and switched from Chemistry to engineering his junior year. Switching majors required approval from the athletic department since he needed an NCAA waiver for performance to degree progress for one semester after the switch. (The Engineering major requires more credits to graduate, so the % progress changed).
In order to keep grades up, he takes only 12 credits during spring (competition semester) and takes a class every summer. He will also take an extra semester to finish. To deviate from the prescribed curriculum/course plan for Engineering he needed written approval from the Dean of the College. He also needs to get approval to take summer classes that are core to the curriculum. It is certainly doable, but he needs to constantly justify what he is doing. The team’s academic adviser has for the most part, been useless and my son has had to do all of his own leg work, figuring out schedule options, etc. but it is doable and worth the effort to keep participating in what he loves and get a degree he wants.
The coach is very supportive and structures his event specific training around his class schedule. He is on a combination of both academic and athletic monies so both are equally important, but I believe he gets some accommodations from the coach because he is a solid performer. Now that he is an upperclassmen, a supportive coach is critical. Most required upper level classes only have one section offered, and those always seem to overlap with practice.
In investigating school options (he transferred due to athletic issues) we did make sure that both the athletic and academic departments had a history of working together. At our local State U., (not where is he is going) the Dean of Engineering was not going to flex anything, and it was obvious that he would be set up for failure with a required 17-18 credits required in each Spring semesters.