<p>This is for all of the pre-med college athletes out there (If such a thing even exists??):</p>
<p>I will be a premed freshman next year. I will attending a D-III school and I have the chance to play Varsity Tennis. Now, I also need to study hard (obviously), work at the hospital, do research, etc... all that pre-med stuff.</p>
<p>Does it work out? Is it possible to manage your time in such a way that your grades don't drop, etc.? Tennis woud be fun, but I certainly don't want to do it if it means getting a lower gpa, or losing out on internship or other opportunities.</p>
<p>Also, does playing a varsity sport in college look good on a resume sent to med schools? I'm sure they would understand that there isn't time for everything, but if one person were to do more research, internships, etc. and another applicant were to do a varsity sport and only one internship, etc.--WOuld the first applicant be looked upon more favorably?</p>
<p>Has it been done before? Yes, and sometimes with spectacular results. Some superstar athletes have successfully managed to combine spectacular athletic careers with premed. The legendary swimmer Jenny Thompson, who with 12 Olympic medals (8 gold) has won more Olympic medals than any swimmer in history, was a premed at Stanford and is now at Columbia Medical School (she went on leave to compete in the 2004 Athens Olympics where she won her 11th and 12th medals). Debi Thomas, 2-time world champion and the first Black to win an Olympic medal in figure skating (bronze in the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics), also did premed at Stanford, and later graduated from Northwestern University Medical School. Amy Chow, who was part of the 'Magnificent Seven' cohort of American ladies to become the first and only US ladies team to win the Olympic all-around gold in gymnastics, as well as the winner of an individual silver medal in the uneven bars (both at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics) , did premed at (where else?) Stanford, and then went to Stanford Medical School. </p>
<p>So obviously it can work out, you just have to be very very good at time management. </p>
<p>I think you alluded to the crux of the issue - which is that you have to really look at what the tradeoffs are. The athletic talent of the above 3 ladies is obviously off the charts. They were so good as to put themselves in the history books. If I were any of these 3 ladies, I would choose to spend a great deal of time nurturing my athletic talent, even if it meant not getting into med-school. Just being able to qualify for an Olympic games is an amazing, life-defining accomplishment, and they didn't just go to the Olympics, they actually won medals. </p>
<p>The reality is what you described - by pursuing sports, you are probably going to end up with worse grades and less relevant EC's than you would if you didn't play sports. That's the unvarnished truth. At least in the above 3 cases, they were on full athletic scholarships, so at least they were getting a free Stanford education out of it all, which is nothing to sneeze at. </p>
<p>You have to carefully think about what you will be gaining from playing sports vs. what you might be losing. Nobody can tell you what to do - it's really up to you. Just carefully consider the pros and cons.</p>
<p>Again, I would point out that it's really all about a cost-benefit analysis. In all the above examples (mine and ort30), the people are on an athletic scholarship, so while their sports may be taking up a lot of their time, at least they're getting at least part (or in many cases all) of their education paid for. Division 3, as far as I know, does not offer athletic scholarships. Hence, the cost-benefit analysis is different.</p>
<p>Well what if division 3 varsity VS. relevant internship/reseach ? Which would med school favor? IMO varsity sports is more time demanding and physically demanding than clubs. So how good would it look to employers and grad school if you had played 'tennis' or another sport during college?</p>
<p>In general, they would probably prefer the relevant internship/research. For the most part, med-schools don't care that much that you are doing a task that is more demanding. They want to be sure that you are doing something relevant. Nor is this an unreasonable request on their part. Med-schools want to make sure that you actually are interested in medicine, and if you don't have any experience in the industry, there is no way you can credibly assert that you are truly interested in the industry. After all, if you've never been in it, how would you know? The more experience you have in the industry, the more confident you can be that the industry is really for you.</p>