Application question - English pre-req

[danjou]

Sorry this is not in line with the current talks of interview and whatnot --

What exactly can one get away with for the English prerequisite?

I'm non-trad., majored in biochem and classical civ. in college (~4 yrs ago), am taking the
science classes over. I never took an English class in college b/c my ACT scores were high enough
to get me exempt. I've taken
the slew of literature classes for my classic civ major (Greek Literature, Roman Comedies, History
of Philosophy, etc.) - would that be
enough? I'm already trying to take all the sciences over again, I'd hate to have to retake a
basic English Lit. class just to fulfill the requirements when I already know how to write.

I heard before that any basic humanities course that requires a paper would be enough to
cover the English req. Any ideas out there? Suggestions?

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[Doctora Foxy]

Some schools sepecifically say that a humanities class will not count for the English/American Lit. credit, while others don't care. However, your classical lit class should count. When you fill out your amcas application, you'll have to classify each type of class. If you can back up your classes w/ reasons why they would be English credits, then maybe you can classify it as such on your amcas. I took a "Spanish and European cultural studies" class that was just an English class with a funny name as far as I could tell, so I designated it as English. Your best bet would be to call up the schools and ask what they would accept. You don't want a little thing like this to hold you back.

Good luck!

 

[sandflea]

i think you're fine. the english requirement isn't specifically 'english literature': med schools don't make you take a year of english to make you well-versed in english/american literature--they do it to ensure that you can write coherently. so any kind of composition or literature course will suffice. my college counted any writing-heavy course as fulfilling the premed english requirement.

 

[lola]

argh... I'm still having issues with this silly English requirement. I have taken 1 semester of English literature and no English composition classes. However, I went to a liberal arts college and have therefore taken many humanities/other classes that required a lot of writing. Has anyone classified a course as English that was not in the English Department? Did AMCAS have a problem with this? I just really don't feel like taking a composition course at a community college. (They notified me today that I would have to jump through hoops to take the most basic class since I haven't taken remedial writing!) Here are my possible courses:

Chemistry Thesis -- obviously a chemistry course but required writing a lot more than many composition courses would require

Perspectives in Human Biology -- my freshman writing course even though is a biology course

Linguistics

The Growth and Structure of France Before the Revolution -- French class that involved a lot of writing

Perpsectives in International Studies -- required a great deal of writing

While I could call the admissions office of every school I am applying to, it would require a lot of effort since I'm applying to over 20 schools. Any ideas?

 

[ellerose]

I don't know you guys, I almost had a problem with this one. I tried to use my Hispanic Lit class as my literature class, and when I called one of the medical schools I was interested in to see if they would take it, they gave me a big fat "NO". They said that they wanted two courses that specifically had the English department designation/prefix on them, writing or lit classes. Up until about a year ago, I only had the equivalent of one undergrad english class, since I had tested out of frosh year english, so I simply took american lit as an online course last summer and washed my hands of it. Since there are so many different requirements from every different school, I would err on the side of being cautious and take two classes that are from an English department. If you know you can get away with taking less, then go for it, but unless you want to call every single school you are applying to to double check your situation, I would suck it up and take the damn english classes. I actually enjoyed reading something other than science textbooks when I took American lit...have some fun with it and take Shakespeare or Dante or African-American lit or whatever. You're definitely not going to get the opportunity again to be forced to read really great literature. And since most lit classes are writing intensive, they should count as writing classes as well. Well, that's just my 2 cents, anyway.

 

[lola]

where did you take the online course? i was looking into that as an option, but do i have to do it through a local school? i'm not too familiar with online education.

 

[ellerose]

I took it at Arizona State University. I honestly don't know how it works if you are out of state, but it doesn't hurt to try. I looked up the online course summer schedule, and there are some interesting lit/english comp classes starting in July. Go to <a href="http://asuonline.asu.edu/" target="_blank">http://asuonline.asu.edu/</a> to check out the schedule and to possibly find out more info about taking these classes. Good luck.