Hello! I need some clarification on the prerequisites for medical school. It says I need one year of English, biology, physics, etc., but what is classified as “one year”? The college I want to go to is separated into three quarters (fall, winter, and spring), so does that mean that three courses satisfy the one year requirement (if one course for each quarter counts as a year)? Or does the “one year” requirement mean I have to dedicate all of my courses to that one subject for the entire year (for example, if I took four courses each quarter, I would have to take twelve courses total)? I hope this makes sense, please let me know.
3 quarters= 1 year or 2 semesters= 1 year
Usually there is a specific Biology/Physics series for majors you take. Regarding English if you are on a quarter system you need to probably take an n English writing course 1 quarter, a literature course 1 quarter and a English composition course 1 quarter. Your college should have a Pre-Med advising office to help you plan a schedule.
In a typical quarter system (eg fall, winter, spring, summer), a premed bio seq will divided into say Bio 1 (fall) Bio 2 (winter), Bio 3 (spring). Completion of the entire seq (ie bio 1,2,3) would be needed to satisfy a one year premed bio req. A separate grade for each course in each term would be calculated into your GPAs. Typically a course like Bio 1 would be 4 quarter units. To maintain full time status one typically has to take 12 units or 3 four unit courses each term. So besides say bio 1, students will take other courses to also satisfy GE reqs, or for interest, or because of scheduling. It’s quite common for students to take 4 separate four unit courses each quarter (ie total of 16 units), although the number of units could be higher or lower… As a note if you attend a college that operates on a two semester system, taking bio 1, bio 2 would satisfy premed reqs. In short 3 quarters = 2 semesters = one year of bio, chem, english, etc
Typically, a quarter system college will divide a typical year long introductory biology course into three 10-week quarters instead of two 15-week semesters. Similar for other courses like general chemistry, organic chemistry, introductory physics, calculus, etc…
In a few cases, the content of a year long sequence may be compressed into two quarter courses with higher numbers of credits (e.g. two 6-credit courses instead of three 4-credit courses). If that is the case at your school, you may want to ask the school’s pre-med adviser to find out if they are acceptable as “a year” of those courses.