Language

[84lep48]

hey guys,

Im new here hope u guys can help me out with this. this might be an odd question, but i was just wondering,

when applying to medical school, do admissions care about what kind of language course you took/are taking/ or didnt take?

and are med schools informed of waivers for classes that we recieve as an undergrad? thanks a lot

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[Mortal_Lessons]

hey guys,

Im new here hope u guys can help me out with this. this might be an odd question, but i was just wondering,

when applying to medical school, do admissions care about what kind of language course you took/are taking/ or didnt take?

and are med schools informed of waivers for classes that we recieve as an undergrad? thanks a lot

I know that some medical schools (UCLA, UTSW, and I'm sure many others) that serve in minority-populated areas (big cities) favor Spanish courses. Other than this, I'm not too sure.

I don't know what you mean by "waivers for classes that we recieve as an undergrad." Are you referring to AP credit?

 

[84lep48]

hey, thx for the quick reply.

as for the waiver part, i have a friend who recieved a language waiver since she is fluent in japanese so she did not have to complete the language classes but now shes worried that when applying, it might kind of make her seem lazy by opting to take the waier instead of going through the classes. So she was wondereing whether or not that waiver would be known by people looking at the transcripts and such.

 

[Mortal_Lessons]

hey, thx for the quick reply.

as for the waiver part, i have a friend who recieved a language waiver since she is fluent in japanese so she did not have to complete the language classes but now shes worried that when applying, it might kind of make her seem lazy by opting to take the waier instead of going through the classes. So she was wondereing whether or not that waiver would be known by people looking at the transcripts and such.

I'm pretty sure the waiver is useless--the only thing that matters is course credit. To my knowledge, the waiver just gets you out of having to take certain language requirements and allowing you to place into a higher language level. Unlike AP credit though, you are not awarded course credit for being proficient in the language--you just get to bypass lower level language courses. I'm not entirely sure though, so take my opinion with a grain of salt...

 

[PlayMeSomeMusic]

language isn't a prereq for med schools.. it's nice to have but not required everywhere

 

[Law2Doc]

hey guys,

Im new here hope u guys can help me out with this. this might be an odd question, but i was just wondering,

when applying to medical school, do admissions care about what kind of language course you took/are taking/ or didnt take?

and are med schools informed of waivers for classes that we recieve as an undergrad? thanks a lot

Schools won't care about the courses you take as much as fluency. If you can list fluency in a foreign language, that is viewed positively, particularly by schools affiliated with hospitals serving non-English speaking populations.

 

[Mortal_Lessons]

Schools won't care about the courses you take as much as fluency. If you can list fluency in a foreign language, that is viewed positively, particularly by schools affiliated with hospitals serving non-English speaking populations.

I don't know if the AMCAS has changed since last year, but I don't remember a section that gave you the opportunity to list language fluency. I do remember a section that asked you to list languages spoken at home. So, without taking language courses and without being able to list this language as spoken at home, the only real place to put your language fluency would be in your PS or as an extracurricular, neither of which seems an appropriate place to mention language fluency. And if you're trying to secure an interview, which is the hardest part in the process, it seems that language fluency won't help unless you've taken courses in the language. It would only serve to help once you've secured an interview and the interviewer allows you the opportunity to bring up your language fluency, but by this point, you've already secured an interview. Is this not right?

 

[SB100]

Be careful when you put on your resume how fluent in a language you are. Someone I know who interviewed two years ago put down he was fluent in French because he took so many French courses, and got an French-speaking interviewer

 

[HumbleMD]

Schools won't care about the courses you take as much as fluency. If you can list fluency in a foreign language, that is viewed positively, particularly by schools affiliated with hospitals serving non-English speaking populations.

Don't worry about upper language courses. Being able to dissect and interpret Pablo Neruda will serve you little when facde with communicating with a non English speaker. The placement exams will be all you need, and you won't appear lazy.

 

[TheAmazingGOB]

Spanish is probably the best second language to be fluent in to impress medical schools. But, as previous posters said, make sure you ARE actually fluent if you state you are as some schools will give you fluent interviewers (though I'm fluent in portuguese and no schools threw a portuguese speaker at me).

As far as testing out of classes, I don't think it shows adcoms that you were lazy, I think it shows them that you speak the language well enough to not have to waste your time learning how to count to ten and conjugate verbs. I guess you could take an upper division language class to really show you are proficient, but that's your call.

 

[etsuprinthead]

i don't have any foreign languages (i took latin in high school, but that hardly counts. languages aren't required for a BS at my school) and i don't think it really hurt me. the program i'm going into told me i would need to take spanish courses while i am in medical school, but i don't think they counted it against me too much that i didn't already have it.

 

[Felzor]

I heard from one adcom member that more esoteric languages taken in college like Arabic and Chinese are considered to be a sign of well-roundedness and unique interests. I think you have to have taken several courses in these languages though.