<p>So I plan on double majoring in English and Chemistry, in a pre-med route. People are telling me I shouldn't overload myself and that I should only focus on Chemistry. I'm normally the science math type of guy, never knew how to write well, thus I wanted to major in English in order to strengthen my weakness. I really want to go to a top medical school, let alone a medical school. So my question is, how important is the type major in order to be competitive for medical schools? Would they prefer a chem/english major with a 3.5 GPA or 3.8 Chem?</p>
<p>Most pre-meds around my D. were having at least one minor, some double minors, one girl had triple major and graduted on time. Her other majors were not related to medicine/science at all.<br>
Preference is ALWAYS for higher GPA, the rest almost does not matter, minors/other majors, name of your UG, you main major…irrelevant. People do minors/multi majors to develop in thier area of interests outside of medicine, to be away from that push for a bit, frankly, my D. commented that her Music minor has helped her a lot, but it was also very easy for her wiht some very exciting events like recording her own music in real recording studio using software to write her original songs…new excting expoeriences, it was R&R more or less. Other that developing in your personal area of interest there is no other goal for having minors/multi-majors, Med. Schools do not care.
Writing skill is extremely important, but you do not need English major to develop it, but if you want to have English major, why not?
In regard to “top” Med. School, ALL American Med. Schools are top Med. Schools, everybody is just happy to have one spot somewhere, anything in addition is a bonus.</p>
<p>Medical schools really don’t care about double majors or an assortment of minors. First round screening for med school is pretty number-based: MCAT +GPA.</p>
<p>However, once past the first round screening there are so many soft factors in play, it’s hard to say what exactly each individual on an admission committee will value. So if you happen to interview with a person who favors the more humanities types–an English degree might help. But if you interview with someone else, it probably won’t.</p>
<p>So do the double major if that’s where your interests lie, but don’t do it to impress adcomms. They won’t care.</p>
<p>And a comment as former college English instructor, high school English teacher and holder of a graduate degree in English, I have to say if writing is your weakness–then you don’t want to major in English. </p>
<p>First of all English as a discipline isn’t about learning to write–it’s the about the analysis of literature and understanding literary forms within their critical, social and psychological context. English as a discipline also decomposes the structure of the oral and written language (grammar, linguisitic analysis) to understand how it works as a system, but again this doesn’t teach writing skills. Second, there is an implicit assumption that if you’re an English major you already will know how to write well. Or at least competently and persuasively.</p>
<p>If you want to learn to write better–take composition/writing (also called rhetoric at some schools) and technical writing classes. Their purpose is to instruct you in and refine your writing skills.</p>
<p>(And the major which has IMO the best writing skills–philosophy. They spend all their time learning how to develop a thesis and argue in support of it–which is, in the end, what good writing is all about.)</p>