There will be some differences among conferences, but in terms of overall time commitment and experience, those will be slight. Conferences set when athletes can move in and begin training and the extent of coach contact in the off-season. Some conferences will have different travel schedules – UAA is different than Centennial Conference. Some schools have classes that conflict with afternoon practice times or only offer labs in the afternoon, others don’t. Those are questions to explore when researching specific schools.
Bottom line, playing a D3 sport is a big time commitment. The kids who play all 4 years and don’t drop (barring an injury which makes them drop) are the ones who couldn’t imagine doing anything else as the central part of their college experience. Certainly recruited athletes decide that, all things considered, they’d rather put their energy elsewhere than into their sport, and they leave the team. It’s just too much work to keep doing it if you don’t love it.