High Level Athletes and Premed

[MyOdyssey]

"By choosing Yale, Chen follows in the footsteps of figure skater Sarah Hughes ’09, the 2002 Olympic champion in women’s singles. Unlike Chen, though, Hughes ended her competitive career when she came to Yale, after winning the Olympic gold medal while she was in high school.

Perhaps the biggest difficulty Chen will face in keeping up his training at Yale is working out his coaching arrangement, according to Philip Hersh ’68, a former Olympic sports writer for the Chicago Tribune and former sports editor for the News who writes about figure skating in his blog.

Chen’s current coach, Rafael Arutunian, lives in suburban Los Angeles."
https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2018/04/24/chen-22-will-juggle-sports-academics/

It's nuts that 18 year old Quad King Nathan Chen wants to be a premed at Yale while also continuing his quest for Olympic gold.

Has anyone done so successfully?

@ExcitatorySynapse You know your figure skating. What are your thoughts?

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[SterlingMaloryArcher]

It's because premed has been glamourized for so long that it's becoming the popular thing for young people to declare.

It's not like an 18yo is making a real major life decision when they choose their first program in college.

 

[MSTP18]

Myron Rolle - Wikipedia

Myron Rolle (born October 30, 1986) is a Bahamian American former football safety. He was drafted by the Tennessee Titans in the sixth round of the 2010 NFL Draft. He played college football at Florida State. He attended the Florida State University College of Medicine and is a neurosurgery resident at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital.

 

[Xyzcannon18]

One of the MS2s at my school (Stanford) won both a national championship and a gold medal at the Olympics during pre-med (bio major, also at Stanford).

No wonder they are at Stanford

 

[Pathdocmd]

Abby Johnston won Olympic medals in diving while she was a Duke med student.

How Abby Johnston Manages Olympic Training -- And Med School

 

[MyOdyssey]

Those are some good examples.

Figure skating isn't something Chen can do as part of his Yale experience. Yale doesn't field a figure skating team and doesn't have a figure skating coach. His coach is in California and he has to travel all over the world to stay up on his game competitively speaking.

This is more like Natalie Portman being a professional actor while also being a full time student at Harvard where one experience is completely divorced from the student life and requires lots of traveling to boot.

And I wonder how Chen will do trying to compete up as a premed while skating.

At least he'll have something to talk about at his medical school interviews.

Perhaps some of the ad coms will ask him to sign autographs.

 

[MSTP18]

Those are some good examples.

Figure skating isn't something Chen can do as part of his Yale experience. Yale doesn't field a figure skating team and doesn't have a figure skating coach. Chen can't integrate figure skating into his Yale experience. His coach is in California and he has to travel all over the world to stay up on of his game competitively speaking.

This is more like Natalie Portman being a professional actor while also being a full time student at Harvard where one experience is completely divorced from the student life and requires lots of traveling to boot.

And I wonder how Chen will do trying to compete up as a premed while skating.

At least he'll have something to talk about at his medical school interviews.

Perhaps some of the ad coms will ask him to sign autographs.

That sounds like more of an issue with choosing Yale (or any east coast school) than with balancing the two. If the coach is in California, surely Stanford, cal tech, Pomona or some other school would make it a lot easier.

 

[puahate]

I wish I was a genetic god like these people. Athletic and high IQ. Prime genetics.

 

[MyOdyssey]

I wish I was a genetic god like these people. Athletic and high IQ. Prime genetics.

CRISPR-Cas9 may be the equalizer you're looking for.

 

[MyOdyssey]

That sounds like more of an issue with choosing Yale (or any east coast school) than with balancing the two. If the coach is in California, surely Stanford, cal tech, Pomona or some other school would make it a lot easier.

I'm assuming Chen was turned down by Stanford - as hard as it may be to believe - simply because I'd assume Chen would prefer Stanford's proximity to his coach over Yale.

Caltech is for those with a very specific focus and hardly conducive to premeds seeking a high GPA while training for the gold.

Pomona makes sense and it's a lot closer to Chen's coach in LA than Yale.

 

[nimbus]

There were also these guys....

Eric Heiden - Wikipedia

Benjamin Spock - Wikipedia

Tony Sandoval - Wikipedia

 

[nimbus]

I'm assuming Chen was turned down by Stanford - as hard as it may be to believe - simply because I'd assume Chen would prefer Stanford's proximity to his coach over Yale.

Caltech is for those with a very specific focus and hardly conducive to premeds seeking a high GPA while training for the gold.

Pomona makes sense and it's a lot closer to Chen's coach in LA than Yale.

Hundreds of successful premeds out of UCLA and USC every year too. He must have wanted Yale.