<p>My daughter has been admitted to Stanford, Harvard, Princeton and loves both Harvard and Stanford. </p>
<p>The challenge is we've heard athletics at Stanford is a "job" and the coach says you can't do pre-med and compete at a high level - you need to choose one. That doesn't seem to be the case at Harvard. Harvard seems to have a higher percentage of scholar athletes. She wants to be around scholar athletes so Harvard would seem the better choice, but there are aspects of Stanford that are clearly better than Harvard (some academic programs, weather, campus, etc.). Also, we're worried there is a lot of travel for athletes at Stanford, despite what the coach says.</p>
<p>I'd be curious to hear from any Stanford scholar athletes what they have found on the inside. Thanks. Decision time in 2 weeks!</p>
<p>Twelve Stanford Athlete-Scholars have won a Rhodes Scholarship.</p>
<p>During a panel at the student/parent orientation a student spoke about his research and how open Stanford was to help undergraduates do research. It was all very exciting and his research was really interesting. The moderator of the panel then told the audience that the student was being very humble…the student was also the Rose Bowl MVP. He did research at NASA and is now a petroleum engineering graduate student at Stanford.</p>
<p>Harvard ( and the Ivy League) DO have more restrictions on how much time athletes are required to commit to their sport. Stanford does not .<br>
Stanford has always highly prized it’s scholar athletes AND any students who win National championships for the school ( they have separate athletic scholarships )
The PAC 12 is one of the most competitive athletic conferences in the country. And Stanford
Players , coaches , students and alumni are fiercely competitive and want Stanford to WIN !</p>
<p>So if your D is being asked to play for Stanford , she should expect that she will
Have to devote more of her time to sports, than if she were at Harvard. </p>
<p>Look up the teams at both schools for the sport your daughter plays and see how much they travel. Even though the Ivy league schools aren’t that far away, Cornell and Dartmouth may be a pain to get to. The Pac 12 is up and down the coast, with Colorado and Ariz a little farther, but maybe a 2-3 hour flight.</p>
<p>There is also a possibility that there is a club level team in her sport if she decides the varsity sport is too much. Does she have a sports scholarship from Stanford? Is her attending dependent on staying on the team?</p>
<p>@EastvWest. I agree with many of the things already said. I am confused…was your daughter recruited to play for Stanford or is she going to be a walk-on? And for what sport? Because as others have said each sport requires different set of time commitments. Stanford, unlike any of its academic peers (H or P), have top athletes (Olympic and Professional level) who compete against the best athletes in the world (they don’t compete with ONLY an academic conference)…
…and whatever the endeavor, be it academics or sports, the students at Stanford strive to be the best…</p>
<p>…the student-athletes I have known over the years were just as focused in their studies as anyone else who was not an athlete…“premeds” included…and by the way, there is no such thing as “premed” major…and most “premeds” can major in almost anything to get into a top medical school…</p>
<p>…so, if your daughter is not of the highest caliber and just wants to “participate” in athletics as an extracurricular activity to get into a medical school like so many other kids do at ALL colleges…then Stanford is probably not it…</p>
<p>…but, if your daughter is of the highest caliber and is excited to compete with the best and be part of a great tradition of giving it her all for her team, the school, and winning the Director’s Learfield Cup (the top NCAA Prize in athletics given to a school each year) 19 years in a row and counting…then Stanford is where she belongs…</p>
I was briefly on the crew team at Stanford while also pursuing both the pre-med and the engineering tracks and always choosing the highest levels of courses available, which was in some cases higher than is common for either track (for example 60 series of physics instead of 50 series (engineering) or 20/40 series (pre-med)). I believe NCAA limits practices to 20 hours per week. I’m not sure of the limit for men’s crew, but we usually we usually practiced ~25 hours per week, including travel time. The numbers of hours per week is similar to the number of hours one would work at a part time job, so in that sense it is like a job. However, I’d expect that most students at Stanford have interests outside of the classroom that take up this many hours or more, like they did in high school. Most students aren’t spending nearly all their free time studying, regardless of major or whether they play a sport. There were quite a few people on the crew team who also did pre-med and a few who did engineering as well. The crew bus left for practice at 6AM, which was unpleasant, particularly in the winter, when it was dark, cold, and raining. They chose such an early time, so the athletic practice would not interfere with scheduling of classes. We’d arrive back on campus just before 9AM classes each day. Stanford encourages athletes to be successful academically and does not restrict athletes from pursuing pre-med, challenging majors, coterminal masters degrees, etc. When I was there, they gave “scholar athlete” awards to many athletes each trimester. I’d expect the percentage of “scholar athletes” to vary quite a bit from sport to sport, which likely relates to how much the sport influenced admissions decisions and the potential for becoming a professional athlete after graduating. It’s been my limited experience that most athletes on women’s teams tend to be focused on academics. Similarly the amount of travel will vary significantly by sport. Which sport does your D play?</p>
<p>There are football players who pursue engineering degrees, which take up a ton of time, and I can’t imagine many sports more demanding in time that football. When I was a student, I had scholarship athlete friends majoring in just about everything, including pre-med type majors. I think the people who are student athletes at Stanford have proven incredible time management skills and they seem to get more done. You know what they say, if you want something done, ask a busy person, because they know how to manager their time and get stuff done. I think Stanford is highly conducive to athletes at all levels, and the professors and students all get that it is part of the whole picture.</p>