A (midwest) neighbor was determined to go to standford. kid had 36 ACT by age 16; won multiple state contests in math; took summer programs at Stanford thinking that’d show interest; and was crushed when s/he didn’t get in; even with “geographic diversity”. (kid ended up at a HYP school).
D16’s bff from HS didn’t tell anyone s/he applied to Stanford; and was admitted. Not as quite as high of test scores as above neighbor, but school leader, valedictorian, talented, and from an eclectic background. (think something similar to Dwight from the office and his beet farm). there was no manipulation, positioning, or guidance for this kid; but plenty of hard work, passion, and thoughtful essays.
i know these are two random anecdotes pertaining to college admissions; but i guess my point is that you just can’t tell for sure what helps you get in or not. So many deserving kids! both these kids followed their passions; but one was more atypical.
Volunteering at a hospital would be a good way for your kid to see if they are interested in going into the medical field. That said, at least in our area, it is harder for high school kids to volunteer at the hospital due to privacy laws and the fact that they want people who can commit long term. You mostly see retirees volunteering at our local hospital.
Again, thanks for all the replies, I should have added that my son is zero percent persuaded by us the parents regarding goal of medical school. He is taking PLTW Bio Med classes in high school that interest him the most.
His baseball coach is a MD and my son talks to him a lot of what he does and that interests him.
He is asking the same question he would ask a private college coach counselor on recommendation for summer EC path for the stretch schools. To a adcom, would his current EC summer path look decent for a stretch school?
Sounds mostly from the responses as long as he shows passion. Thanks!
“Passion” isn’t it. It’s the actions and what that shows colleges of his drives and thinking. ("Show, not just tell.) Just baseball this summer may not be what other top contender kids present.
Many posters say do what interests you. But once you insert S or Ivies, the game changes. The competition is nuts. Just talking to an MD isn’t it. Maybe the doc can get him hours at the hospital. Or a public clinic. Or in advocacy (a cause that works to remedy health issues or access.)
Coaching disabled is good. But the idea in comm service is when a kid gets out if his usual comfort zone, expands. Partly this is about awareness and willingness to do so. They like both the compassion and the kids who do try new things- regardless whether they are preconceived “interests.” Those are the kids likely to be open, try new things in college.
And unless he’s recruitable, passion for baseball isn’t one of the attributes they look for.
On the MIT tour, the Asian boy leader of the group said it was his athletic interests that got him admitted.
On a slightly different note, I would strongly suggest a summer job. My son attended an Ivy League school and we were full pay, which was fine except we told him there would be no spending money from us. The idea being, if he wanted to be able to go on vacation or out to dinner or whatever else with his possibly more wealthy friends during college, he would have to finance that. Which he did! If your son won’t have the same financial constraints then I guess it won’t matter, but then again I’ve always believed that succeeding at a job tells a lot about a person and I think colleges do look at that as a positive.
Your son should choose an activity he loves or a cause he is passionate about.
I am hopeful he will find his best place.
And how does he KNOW this?
There is an excellent NPR program which should be available as a podcast. They interviewed a number of Ivy students and asked them what stood out in their applications that got them admitted. Each one said “I don’t know”.
How would this MIT student know for sure that his athletic interests got him admitted? My opinion…there is NO WAY he would know this. And I’m guessing, the rest of his admissions packet was excellent…and probably that is what got him admitted.
He has no idea why he was admitted. What he should have said to be accurate: " IMO, it was my athletic interests that got me admitted."
My high school has had a very organized internship program since the late 60s. I was talking to the headmistress at some point and she said that she thought that it was as important that many girls found out what they didn’t want to do, as what they did want to do. (Apparently especially true for people volunteering with vets!)
I agree that if you are not recruited, baseball or any other sport, will be viewed as an EC. That being said, based on our experience, summer travel ball often leaves little time for anything else. That was S’s only summer activity (no research, summer programs, etc…) but he did do a lot of high quality diverse EC stuff during the school year.
Being recruited is the most powerful hook there is, other than possibly being the kid of a major donor. However, the Ivies and especially Stanford are legit D1 baseball schools, and I wouldn’t count on that card unless your son can pitch 85+ (90+ for Stanford) or have a bat exit velocity of 90+. Here is a link to a good site with a some parameters to consider if you are wondering if your son is recruitable and at what level. https://www.tpcollegeshowcase.com/evaluation-reference-information.html. For us, S was not quite D1 material but was a highly sought D3 recruit. He ended up at a HYPS, but not as a recruited athlete. So, if your kid loves baseball and is really good at it, nothing wrong with focusing on just that over the summer. If not Stanford and the Ivies, maybe getting a recruit slot for a great D3 school is a nice thing to have in your back pocket. If you are going that route, you should know that it will be important for him to get some showcases/camps under his belt this summer (more time and travel). Kids are getting onto radar screens summer between soph and junior year, with the critical recruit or no recruit decisions based on summer ball (camps, showcases, tournaments) summer of junior year, unless your kid is a total phenom.
Actually its pretty well known by now that the MIT Dean of Admissions was a professional crew coach and MIT does favor athletes in admissions. Its seen as a balancing factor, student athletes often do better in academics at MIT and elsewhere, as they are healthy and strong! 
I see this for 20 years now, in Colorado interviewing, for MIT, not only does MIT favor student athletes, they are now recruiting in many sports, including football, volleyball, track and others. Athletes fit at MIT today.
MIT will fund or partially fund, athletic students to visit, and meet coaches, see this website-
https://www.mitathletics.com/information/Compliance/DIII_-_PSA
MIT candidates with athletic ability should contact coaches here-
https://www.mitathletics.com/information/directory/index
Here are FAQs for parents to get an idea of athletics at MIT-
https://www.mitathletics.com/genrel/Parent_FAQ-s
MIT still encourages walk ons, too so they do favor athletic students as they make great walk ons for teams.
I walked on for Women’s Cross Country and had a fabulous experience.
One way to learn more, is to pay MIT to attend a sports clinic, such as here, although I do NOT believe
this is a recruiting event ??, it is a way to meet an MIT coach.
https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/32a827_f34224eb510c446b984f534b981d3644.pdf
OP can look here for baseball info at MIT
https://www.mitathletics.com/sports/m-basebl/index
MIT holds a wide variety of sports clinics over summers, that cost money, are taught by MIT athletic coaches,
and are open to some very young kids, like 9th graders-- I can only assume some students get into MIT this way.
https://www.mitathletics.com/information/Camps-Clinics
Crew is division 1 at MIT, both lightweight and heavy weight, men and women. So thats an entirely different recruiting process, as I understand it. I have seen Division 1 crew recruits get a reject at MIT, for admission.
So no guarantees, but athletes fit well at MIT.
Well…except that the OP didn’t mention MIT. He mentioned Stanford and the Ivies…
If OP’s son is interested in MIT (or Caltech), be aware that their coaches do not get almost guaranteed slots for their recruits. They get to submit a letter of support which will make the sport a supercharged EC. The Ivies and most academic D3’s give designated slots for sport recruits. If OP is interested in this line, he should go through the Athletic Recruits sections on this site. There is pretty extensive discussion on baseball and selective school recruiting on various threads.
I thought during the school year activities were much more important than how a kid spends his summers. Some have parents who can support the expenses of a sport, travel or other things. Being able to handle school academic work plus having time for EC’s during the school year seems to be the norm for even flagship level universities (and colleges).
Again- let your kid be a kid. Even teen years are for living, not just prepping for a future.
Physician here- I just do not see where any HS hospital volunteer jobs will be useful for knowing if one wants to become a physician. Shadowing physicians, yes but others seem more for nursing, OT, PT and other helping patients roles where their jobs may be observed while doing grunt (ie unskilled) work.
The diff is OP asked about Stanford and Ivies, not flagships (though many are also very competitive.) And parents supporting just travel went out about 10 years ago.
The point of being a hosp or clinic vol (or other ways, like local health advocacy groups,) is to be in the milieu, with the needs. Working in the gift shop isn’t quite it, but there are many things kids can do to experience the environment, patient situations, urgency, and more. Shadowing is more a need for med school apps.
It’s less about confirming you want to be a doc than putting your efforts where you claim your interests are. This is, after all, about admissions. Show, not just tell. A lot of applicants will proclaim they want to help people and then haven’t done any of that in relevant ways.
But tippy tops want the right rounding. A student needs to decide whether he wants that level of college and will go for it or would rather do something else and drop his college targets down a level or two.
It’s a balance.
Hospital volunteering would have been far too boring for me and one never gets the interesting world of physicians with those jobs. Serving people by meeting needs in a hospital setting just doesn’t touch upon the diagnosis part that appeals to physicians. Unless of course one could watch tests and procedures.
I agree with everyone saying let him be a kid and find his own path.
That said IMO, if baseball and medicine are passions of his, is there any way you could combine them during the summer? Such as shadowing a sports rehab physician/ PT place or something of that nature? Perhaps he could do some kind of research on baseball related injuries and rehabilitation for those injuries? Things like Thoracic Outlet Syndrome or dropped scapula/ scapular diskynesis/ SICK Scapula or throwers elbow/ Tommy John come to mind.
Maybe he could just create a presentation to your local school or others on sports overuse injury prevention.
Find the community where his passion lies and work to create impact within that community would be my suggestion that he cant go wrong with.