Kid wants to swim DI and do pre-med. How do I advise him?

Athletic Recruits
1

I am getting ready to launch D18. All is going smoothly, thanks in large part to the CC community. S20’s situation is completely different, of course. Yes, it’s early, but he’s a recruitable athlete. That’s just one piece of this puzzle. I’m hoping you all can help me sort this out.

S20 has been on several college visits already; some as a tagalong with D18, and some because he’s asked to see certain schools. He’s very involved with the process and will love college, no doubt! He’s forming opinions of what he wants out of his college experience, but I’m not convinced it’s realistic.

He’s a swimmer. He has several sectionals cuts and is dropping time like crazy. He’d already be an asset to many D3 colleges, and might catch the eye of some DI coaches, especially as time goes on. S loves competing. He also likes the idea of the big rah-rah DI school. He loves sports in general and wants to be involved in every way possible.

The catch is he wants to be pre-med. His dad is a surgeon, and they talk shop often, so S has a good idea of what’s involved. I keep suggesting Physical Therapy to him as another career option, as I don’t want him to feel boxed in to the med school thing, plus I think it would suit him well. He likes that idea, too, so as of right now, S wants to major in Kinesiology, or Exercise Science, or something of that ilk. He figures that way he can study what he’s most interested in, and be well positioned for med school, PT school, or something else in that realm.

He’s a smart kid. 4.0 UW at a rigorous private school. He took the ACT this fall and got a 30. It will certainly go up. He’s also a superstar drummer for the school’s rock band program, and is snare captain for drumline. He teaches little kids how to play drums for community service, and he has a paying job coaching swim lessons 3-4 hours a week. And he has a girlfriend. Busy guy, right?

This leads me to my quandary:

S can obviously handle a lot. He’s insanely busy but never gets overwhelmed or stressed out. Meanwhile, I keep telling him gently that it’s not a good idea to swim DI and do pre-med. His response usually hints at the fact that he is good at managing a heavy work load now; why would that change in college? I sense he feels that I don’t have confidence in him. Yikes.

The way I see it, he has three options. The first two seem the most realistic, but S really wants the third.

  1. Swim for a D3 school that has merit opportunities (we are full pay) and a kinesiology major. I can't find very many of these. We have visited one, and S wasn't crazy about it.
  2. Attend a big state flagship (again with Kinesiology and merit opportunities) and swim for their club team, which may or may not satisfy S's competitive nature. I have found lots of schools in this category.
  3. Swim for a DI school with his desired major. He could "have it all," but it could be risky academically. He has a specific school in mind here, that he has visited and loved.

He’s at the point where he needs to start contacting coaches and I’m not sure how I should be encouraging/discouraging him. If he IS capable of doing it all, I don’t want to hold him back. But I also don’t want to set him up for failure. Would it be wise for him to contact DI coaches and ask how realistic his plan is at their school? Ask if there are other swimmers who are pre-med and how they are doing? I don’t want to lead him down the DI path if it’s going to be completely impossible. Is there a lot of variation among DI schools/coaches? Am I “guiding” too much? Do I step back and let him pursue his dream, even if it’s risky?

I guess I just need a sounding board here. Anyone have wisdom to share?

2

His choices are NOT kinesiology vs. pre-med. He can study Classics or Art History or Philosophy and also cover off his med school requirements, AND swim. I was a Classics major and had many friends head off to med school, and my kids have friends now doing residencies who majored in all sorts of things. Why push “pre-med”? He can major in something he loves without the pressure of declaring himself a future doctor senior year of HS, and then get to college and figure it out (like everyone else).

I don’t see here an explanation of why/what/how much merit you need to make college feasible. Are you looking for the 10K off the sticker price kind of merit or serious money?

There are lots of professions that kids who thought they might want to become doctors end up doing and none of them require majoring in exercise science or Kinesiology. Your plans all seem extremely high stress/vocational/pressured. Why not figure out what you can afford, and try to identify the best swim program among them that also has the kind of vibe your son wants???

So yes- I think you are “guiding” too much without actually clarifying reality for him. Let him know your financial constraints- that’s first. He doesn’t need to decide what he’s going to do when he’s 30 right this minute.

3

He can major in ANYTHING as an undergrad and take the necessary required courses for medical school admissions.

I’m not sure why he wouldn’t be able to swim also.

4

I agree with Blossom. Is this kid a sophomore or junior? I would just try to find him a good school where he’d like to swim that you can afford with many great program options. I think it’s easy to get too buried in majors at this stage of the game. If he has an interest or 2, sure the school should have those as options. But I wouldn’t be quick to pigeon hole him. He will figure it out when he gets there and takes some classes of interest. Something like 80% of students do end up changing their major at least once.

5

Skip kinesiology. Why would you push that major on a kid who wants to be pre-med?? Let him major in whatever he wants to major in. Women’s Studies, religion, political science… chemistry… whatever. To limit his choice to a school that has kinesiology is absurd unless he is passionate about it. Figure out if he wants to swim, what type of school and your budget and go from there. Good luck!

6

None of the kids I know who are studying exercise science have the intellectual horsepower to make it into (or out of) med school. Yes- there are overlaps in terms of content and course material. But in my state, the requirements to become a pharm tech have overlap with the requirements to become a Nurse Practitioner. So what?

7

My daughter has a teammate who is heading to dental school (I think her major was chemistry or biology). Several others (including daughter) who are in engineering. They are D2, but their team is ranked sixth in the country so at the same level as some D1 or D3 teams. Honestly, they practiced the same amount when they were ranked 52nd. The biggest difference is the length of the season, as if they make playoffs, they play till they lose. If they keep winning, they travel farther. It takes the same amount of time for a top D1 team to play the limit of 17 games a season (plus playoffs) as for a lower ranked D2 or D3 team to play their 17 games. They all practice, they all lift weights, they all watch film for X hours per week.

I think you should let your son try option 3. Talk to D1 coaches, talk to other swimmers and ask how they balance swimming and classes. Many Olympic swimmers are going to Stanford and Cal and they are good students. Some will go to med school after 4 years, some after 5 or 6. Some will decide medicine isn’t for him/her.

Some club sports require as much time as varsity, but you pay to play/swim, and you can’t get athletic scholarships.

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The swimming in my handle refers to me not my kids. :slight_smile: I know lots of people who swim at great schools and have gone on to med school or business school or law school. I say if that is what he wants let him do it. My masters swim crew is made up of people who swam for Princeton (2), Harvard, Dartmouth, MIT, Tufts, and Penn. My summer league coach from middle school went to Stanford and was then a Rhodes/Marshall/Thouron Scholar. (I can’t remember which one.) It can be done.

If your son can get recruited D1 then go for it. There are also lots of great D3 teams at great D3 schools. Keep in mind that us swimmers are really weird. When we don’t have the “busy 16 hours a day” thing going we become bored and really annoying. If it is who he is encourage him. Let him go for greatness.

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Great posts above, but since you have an older student, how well prepared was he for for college? Did the older one meld into English and math classes or was it a surgile?

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Thank you for the responses.

To clarify:
S (sophomore) is passionate about a Kinesiology major. We all know this may change, and that he could major in anything and still go to med school, or PT school, but this is what interests him right now, so we are IDing schools that offer it. He has a separate list of schools he likes that don’t offer the major. He’s really paid attention to D18’s process and has been asking smart questions.

An “easier” major is not necessarily a bad thing when GPA matters, right?

S is the one driving the med school thing. He has been talking about it for many years (specifically, since he got to dissect a cow eyeball in 5th grade science class:) ). H has done what he can to soften the focus and clue S in to the realities of medicine, and I have made gentle suggestions over the years to keep an open mind and consider alternatives. PT is the only other thing that has even mildly interested him. H and I both know that S doesn’t have to have an end goal NOW, and we occasionally remind S of that, but he’s pretty focused.

Budget-wise, we are flexible. We have quite a bit put away in a 529 for him, and we could contribute more on top of that, but out of principle we don’t want to pay an absurd amount if it’s not necessary. S knows that the less we spend on undergrad, the more we’d be able to help with med school costs.

@twoinanddone Thank you for sharing your D’s experience. This is pretty much what H told me a few minutes ago. He thinks we should let S shoot for the moon.

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Oh my gosh this is so true :)) Thanks @SwimmingDad

@MaterS I’m not sure I understand your question.

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“D1” means different things at different Division 1 schools. I supervised and worked with students at a Division 1 university - Columbia. The Ivy League schools are indeed Division 1, but they deliberately de-emphasize sports in a way that many students can be student-athletes while still taking rigorous courseloads. As a result I knew several student-athletes who were also pre-med.

Swimming D1 at Michigan or Auburn is likely to be very different from swimming Division 1 at Belmont University or Butler or Davidson. There’s also Division 2.

I think the important thing for your son to figure out is what he means when he says “Division 1.” Is he in it for the scholarships and Olympic chances or something, or does he just want to be at a great program in a competitive atmosphere? Because if the latter is the case there are a lot of less time-consuming D1 or D2 programs that may be a good fit for him.

The other option is for him to not go to med school right after college. He could take his pre-med prerequisites in a postbaccalaureate program after he finishes college. This usually takes 1-2 years. He could choose to take 5 years to finish college so he takes fewer courses every semester. There are lots of ways he can swim and also be pre-med if, he wants.

Besides that point, it’s your son’s job to figure out if he can do it all. Maybe he gets to college and swims and tries pre-med and realizes that it’s too much, then he has to decide what he wants more - to be a doctor (or, more appropriately, to go straight from undergrad) or to swim in college. Maybe he changes his mind about medicine once he discovers the broad array of careers there are out there. Maybe he does try to get into med school, fails, and switches tracks to another career he loves. None are bad options.

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I know a young woman who did all her pre-med requirements while majoring in English literature. During one of her med school interviews, at a highly ranked medical school, she said she spent all her time talking about Shakespeare with a med school professor who also majored in literature. Yea, she got in. She just finished her first year of residency at a fancy-pants university hospital. She has no regrets pursuing her passion as an undergrad…

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I love that story, @katliamom The thing is, S’s passion is athletics. Sports medicine. Physical training. Of course his interests may evolve, but they may not.

@julliet Thank you so much. That is exactly the kind of insight I was hoping for.

15

A good friend talked to me about her son’s college options few years back. He was a ranked swimmer and wanted to go to a D1 school for swimming. At that time I said to her that he shouldn’t pick a school because of sports. He should still like the school without swimming. He ended up picking a school where he could swim D1 even though it was not the best fit for him. He quit swimming after one year because of its intensity and it was effecting his grades. This is something I have heard over and over again. College sports are very different than high school sports. The intensity is different and time commitment is a lot higher.

A good education will stay with you forever, college sports will end after college unless you decide to go pro.

16

Its going to take a lot more than sectional cuts to get into a big D1 swim program. As part of the recruiting, the coach is going to talk with your S and ask them questions like what is your intended major, etc. If the coach thinks its too much they will say so. Let your S go through the recruiting process just make sure to contact a lot of different types of programs so he can meet with the different coaches and get a sense of the time commitment, etc.
As noted above its very differernt swimming D1 Michigan v. D1 Colgate v. D1 Brown. But all three will have two a days and dry land practice on top of that.

IMHO better to get merit money so that if S decides swimming is taking too much time he won’t lose the scholarship. If he gets a swim scholarship then the coach owns him. We know big 10 swimmers who could not take summer internships because they had to stay at the school and train (or lose their space and scholarship).
PM me if you have any questions or want more specific info.

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They are not mutually exclusive. You can get an excellent education and still participate in sports, and you can continue in sports after college without going pro. Rich Eisen has a talk radio/tv show. He played football at Michigan and then got a masters at Northwestern in some kind of journalism or communications. He is one smart guy, and doesn’t play football professionally (never did). I know dozens of former college athletes who are coaches, refs, own sports related businesses. I know many more who have other careers but still participate in weekend leagues, swim masters swimming, take up other sports like running. Sports doesn’t end when you leave college, just like music doesn’t end if you don’t go on to be a professional musician, or theater doesn’t end if you don’t move to NYC and do broadway.

I know many people who received excellent educations, sometimes at schools they couldn’t have been admitted to without sports or afforded without the athletic scholarship. For my daughter, sports opened may opportunities at colleges she wouldn’t have been accepted to because she didn’t have a 30 ACT or a college savings account. Sports have been the entry into a debt free education.

18

Top tier schools do not offer sports scholarship.

My girls still dance for recreational purpose, but I am glad they didn’t choose a college because of their dance program. My kids used to dance 15-20 hours a week in high school.

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^^ Not true. Stanford, ND, Duke, Georgetown all offer sports scholarships, and there are many more like Michigan, Wisconsin, Cal, UVa, Georgia Tech in the publics. But even for those D3 or D1 that don’t offer scholarships, playing a sport can get you in the door. My daughter was recruited by many D3 schools that couldn’t give her an athletic scholarship but could give merit scholarships and financial aid. It wasn’t Smith’s admissions office calling, it was the coach.

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@stemmmm

I really like this. Did you find this to be true across the board?

It’s also good to hear that not all DI programs are equally demanding and inflexible. What I generally hear in my world is that DI = they own you, D3 = academics come first. Shades of gray is good.

I will encourage S to spend some time over the winter break (between two a days!) working on his resume and making first contact with a few coaches, across a wide spectrum, to see what kind of feedback he gets.

Thanks to all for the input.