Non-science major, non-science minor, and pre-med combination?

College Majors
1

I’m going into my first year of undergrad and want to do pre-med to (most likely) eventually go to medical school. I’m not 100% sure if I’ll definitely go with med school yet as I would prefer to do law and feel I’d be better at it, but considering the job market and unemployment rate for lawyers, as well as having had such a focus on medicine throughout high school classes, shadowing surgeons, hospital volunteering, etc, and good connections for summer internships, I’m leaning towards medicine.

Regardless of choosing to fulfill med school course requirements in doing pre-med, I want to major in Political Science and minor in English. The PoliSci because I enjoy government/debate and like to stay involved in politics, so I’d definitely like to broaden that and major in it during undergrad, plus I’m going to GWU, so the location is pretty ideal for it. It’ll also fulfill pretty much all of my remaining general college requirements except for Art.
As for the English minor – I absolutely love English and it’s definitely one of my best subjects; so much that I can’t imagine not doing something with it in college. I don’t want to major in it (and instead minor in PS) though, because the required honors program courses are already so writing-intensive and there will be a ton of reading/writing if I’m taking enough English courses to fulfill its major requirements, which would be much too time-consuming, but the 6 or so classes I’d need to take for the minor feels pretty ideal.

On one hand, PS & English are so different from medical sciences that the lack of overlap (that a bio major, for example, would have) makes it more difficult to fulfill the requirements for such a different major, let alone a major and a minor, while doing pre-med. On the other hand, I know medical schools like to see variation in majors and that (aside from the MCAT) the 4.0 GPA is what actually matters, so it’d be better to major/minor in areas of interest/skill that you know you’ll excel in. I was going to do biology, since AP bio was both easy and quite enjoyable/interesting even though it was heavy on memorization, so I assume the college classes prob wouldn’t be a ton different in terms of interesting content, albeit more rigorous and difficult, but I really don’t want that much science…

Does this seem plausible? Or would it be a bad idea to try to squeeze it all in? I do also have certain required courses for the honors program that I have to fit in too. AP exams knocked out like half of the pre-med courses that I’d have to take, but it’s still going to be quite a bit…I would really like to do this but I also feel I’m seriously getting ahead of myself and being too picky lol. I realize this is kinda overly specific to ask, but I won’t be able to get an advising appointment until classes actually start, so any insight for now would be super appreciated. Also, I realize it’s only first semester of freshman year and that declaring a major won’t even come until the end of sophomore year, but when fitting a major/minor/&premed curriculum in, I feel like I definitely won’t have enough space if I don’t start planning/managing class choices from early on.

Thanks so much; ik I wrote a lot haha

TL;DR: PoliSci major + English minor + pre-med = sh*tstorm ?

2

I recently read that some medical schools do not count AP credit for pre-med class requirements - you have to take the college equivalent. Check that before you assume that something you take in high school will prepare you for medical school. Good luck with whatever you choose!

3

Go to your college’s web site and look up the following:

  • General education requirements.
  • Honors program requirements.
  • Requirements for your possible majors and minors.
  • Pre-med courses.

Add up the number of courses or credits you need for all of the above. Subtract any duplicating courses (e.g. some pre-med courses and courses for your major or minor may also fulfill general education requirements). Compare that with the number of courses or credits that you will take during 8 semesters to see how realistic it will be to fit everything in.

Also note that many medical schools do not want to see AP scores used on pre-med courses, so you may have to substitute more advanced courses in the subject areas if you skip the introductory level courses with AP credit. I.e. AP credit may not be able to reduce the number of pre-med courses you have to take in college. However, you can defer this decision with those specific courses until you are sure that you want to continue the pre-med path (e.g. if you have AP credit for math and physics but not chemistry, you may want to start your pre-med courses with chemistry and defer taking math and physics for pre-med purposes until you are sure about pre-med).

4

Yikes thank you so much!! I had no idea about the AP creds thing; at orientation during a pre-med session we were told to just use our AP scores and they suggested we only we retake the introductory course if we’re majoring in it. Do you think that’s mostly just for sciences? Because I know that calculus, for example, is mainly just to pre-req/co-req physics (although the general physics course offered by the university is only pre-req’d by trig, which I found weird since AP physics was heavily calc).

…So, if we use, say, calc, stat, & psych credits to get out of those, take physics at some point regardless of AP creds, take chem freshman year (bombed that AP exam anyways haha) but use AP bio credits to then take o-chem & biochem next year and the year after (since they are pre-req’d with both chem and bio), and take upper-level bio classes later on in college wherever they fit, and an intro to sociology class along the way, would they still not want to see that, even though I’d still be retaking the main sciences?

As a side note…do you know if we have to complete all of the pre-med requirements by the end of our junior year, since that’s when we apply to medical school? I assumed that was the case but now I’m really hoping it isn’t. I see why so many pre-med kids major in bio now haha.

5

In general, when deciding to retake a course which you can skip with AP credit, try the college’s old final exam for that course, so that you can assess your knowledge based on the college’s expectation.

For pre-med courses, you may have to investigate various medical schools’ requirements in consultation with pre-med advising at your undergraduate school. In some cases, it may matter whether your undergraduate school lists specific course equivalency on the transcript. For your first semester, it may be best to start with the pre-med courses that are non-duplicative with your AP credit (e.g. chemistry and/or sociology in your case), so that you do not needlessly “waste” your AP credit if you decide not to do pre-med, or medical schools actually accept your AP credit, or you want to substitute a more advanced course anyway.