Sports team and clinical

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DrMerman

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Apr 11, 2025
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Hello, I am a pre medical student. I am very interested in joining a sports team in my next semester of college. I also plan to do more clinical hours. Is it possible to manage school and both of these commitments? Has someone every gone through this path? Thank you.
 
I am interested in joining the cross country team in my college. The school is D3, but the commitment is fairly large during the season.
 
Cross country is one of the less demanding sports in terms of sheer time requirement. You’ll be busy during the season but it will be manageable. Off season will be cake
 
It's possible, however adding a new sports commitment while also planning to expand your clinical hours at the same time seems like a recipe for academic slippage.

That said, not everything needs to boil down to "will this look good on my med school application." You'll likely never get another chance in your life to do something like join the cross country team. If you want to do it, then do it, and just hold off on obtaining clinical hours until you're confident that you can handle your classes along with this first new time commitment. If you wind up not getting enough clinical hours you can always take a gap year. Many students wind up needing to do that anyways, and come out with a stronger app because of it.
 
Okay... it's certainly possible if you have the discipline for it. If you were doing something like golf or triathlon, that's not bad.

Ice skaters

Track

Olympics
 
Thank you for your advice. I plan to join the team in my second year of college. I could have more time in the after-season to do clinical hours.
 
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