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<p>To be honest, I thought it was an intentional pun haha, especially after your frankly overboard statement about taking “more science and science courses” than other people could “even think about”.</p>
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<p>Exactly - the science pre-reqs can also be fulfilled by a variety of courses as well. There’s certainly no “centralized curriculum” for science courses around the country either.</p>
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<p>So why wouldn’t med schools consider this an important requirement?</p>
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<p>At DS’s college, a student indeed can satisfy his/her writing skill requirement with literally ANY writing intensive course to fulfill his/her graduation requirement. Strangely even some labs and one particular computer science class can be writing intensive. But the fact that the college is happy about satisfying the writing requirement in this way is the not same as that the medical school adcoms are happy about that. IMHO, it is still better to take a genuine writing/literature class offered by the English department, just to be safe.</p>
<p>One medical school adcom (or he was one in the past) who contributed to this board occasionally (Is his screen name Princess’sDad?) encourages premeds to take many hardcore English literature classes like Shakespeare, rather than only science classes. I think he implies that by doing so the applicant may more likely impress the adcoms.</p>
<p>There was a big debate on this premed board that whether many medical schools would rather take a “intellectual gentleman” than a science droid who prefer to work in the lab all the time. Some may say that why the latter (those who are lopsided toward sciences) may fit better in a PhD program. Like a political or public policy debate between the left and the right in this country these days, there was no conclusion reached in this debate. I think the truth is in-between.</p>
<p>With this said, I think some top medical schools indeed prefer an applicant heavily involved with the research. This is because these medical schools distinguish themselves from other non-research medical schools by having their professors, post-docs and, maybe to a much lesser extent, their medical school students, doing a lot of research. I only have one anecdotal evidence: two students with very very good grades (and one of them with a 38 MCAT) were rejected by a top medical school, but another student with 3.7/37 from the same college (but with a much better research experience) was accepted to the same top medical school. I think the latter convinced the adcom that he is heavily into science research but the former two did not.</p>
<p>One reason why many premeds think the science pre-reqs are more important is that they, more often than not, screw up in these classes. For competitive applicants. they not only excel in these science classes, but also distinguish themselves from the crowd by taking many tough non-science classes also.</p>
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Excellent point, a bit jumbled up, but I agree. It certainly is much safer taking an english class offered by the english department.</p>
<p>Curme, well I thought i’d take a course this summer since I don’t really have anything to do and I want to finish all my GEs. Also, I didn’t take the UC placement examination for English and only took the community college placement test so I decided to just take the course. How about if I just take one English course at a CC then? That’s fine right?</p>
<p>Thanks curm!</p>
<p>The safest route would be to take a GE course that was NOT a med school pre-req. But of the med school pre-req’s, that would be the one I’d pick if I had to pick one.</p>
<p>^ I know, but I asked a lot on hSDN and they said taking English at a CC was perfectly fine. Now I’m worried. 
How much will it negatively affect my application?</p>
<p>IMO, not that much. If that’s the worst thing about your app, you are probably golden. It’s still not that great an idea but I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. If it helps you accomplish your undergraduate goals it’s probably worth the ding. If it’s just a way to spend time this summer and doesn’t pay dividends during your school year, get out there and do something you can write about. As always, JMO.</p>
<p>^ What do you mean by paying dividends? I guess it will be slightly helpful because I will get priority registration by taking one more summer course. Plus, I’m not sure if I can take English 1A next quarter at Davis anyways because I decided not to spend $90 on the English placement test since I was decided to take English at a CC.</p>
<p>I guess I’ll just take the course and take the rest at Davis.</p>
<p>Thanks Curm!</p>
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Doesn’t pay dividends means doesn’t gain you anything of value. Doesn’t allow you time to take Women in Chinese Literature, volunteer at the soup kitchen, serve as an officer in your frat, allow you to take a research job, study abroad a semester…any number of things that would enhance your undergraduate experience.</p>