Cats Basketball Standout Olson Talks Medical School in Burlington Free Press Interview
UVM women’s basketball standout and public health graduate student Anna Olson plans to attend medical school and follow her father and older brothers’ footsteps into the medical field, according to a Burlington Free Press article.
On the court, Olson has established herself as one of the program’s best and most durable players. The program’s all-time leader in games played (139), she has tallied 1,680 career points, which places her ninth all-time among Catamounts. Her career field-goal percentage (.545) is third-best in school history, and she’s fifth in total rebounds (847). This winter, she leads Vermont in scoring (12.8 points a game), the only Catamount averaging in double figures. She’s also a two-time first-team selection in America East and was the conference’s rookie of the year in 2021.
The graduate student has found a way to excel in both basketball and academics while getting experience in the medical field. She worked as a scribe taking notes for doctors in the UVM Medical Center’s Emergency Department before giving up the job to focus more on basketball—yet her experience working in the emergency room confirmed Olson’s desire to become a doctor.
“I saw the knowledge the doctors had … and the passion … That balance was extremely inspiring to me.” — Anna Olson
Olson just won the America East’s Elite 18 Award, given to the player with the highest GPA playing in the championship game. Olson boasts a 3.89 GPA while studying public health this year and guiding the Catamounts to their second America East Conference tournament championship in three seasons.
Last summer, Olson took the MCAT, a standardized and comprehensive exam for prospective medical students. She plans to start medical school in the fall of 2026, with interests in becoming a rural obstetrician-gynecologist like her father or a primary care physician. A Minnesota native from Monticello—with a population just shy of 15,000—Olson says, “I grew up in a pretty rural community where my dad was one of the only OBGYNs so I’m definitely inspired to go back to a rural type community and be that doctor for a community.”