Questions About the English Requirement

Medical schools want students who have prepared for a medical education by cultivating humanistic qualities inside and outside the classroom. By requiring English, medical schools hope to help you achieve these goals in at least three ways.

First, reading literature challenges you to broaden your perspective so that you will attend to the individual and communal power of narratives. In “Why Doctors Should Read Fiction,” Sam Kean highlights the recent work of medical humanists, who argue that fiction helps the medical student better confront their own limitations—in understanding patients’ dilemmas—than the tried-and-true medical school case study.

Second, literary analysis encourages you to reach for an emotional understanding of the complex lives you encounter on the page, which prepares you to elicit, encounter, and respond to patients’ narratives as a health professional.

Third, writing a critical analysis of the literature you read helps you develop respectful and insightful ways to question, explore, and understand another’s experiences; it also helps you consider how you can communicate these insights to others.

More immediately, you will need to hone your critical analysis and reading skills for the MCAT and convey your thoughts effectively via writing in your medical school applications. The more that you flex your reading and writing muscles, the more successful you are likely to be in these imminent tasks and in your longer term work in your career.

Do I need to be a literature course? Would another course in the humanities work so long as it has a lot of reading and writing in it?

Different medical schools will have different requirements around English vs. Literature, vs. "Writing-Intensive" courses. At the most conservative, they may ask that applicants complete one year of English coursework, so we advise taking an English/Literature in addition to Writing Seminar to fulfill this prerequisite.

Medical schools that ask for English/Literature are typically looking for a course where you (a) read literature (e.g., novels, short stories, plays, poetry) in English, (b) write critical analyses of that literature, and (c) include significant graded writing count toward the overall course grade. Not all humanities or LA coursework will require you to read literature; many will instead have you read historical monographs and religious or philosophical essays. Not all humanities will have a sufficient writing load either.

If you are unsure whether a course seems like a good fit for the English prerequisite, take it through the flowchart above, then send any remaining questions with the name of the class, a course description, and a syllabus to [email protected] – we will be happy to give you our thoughts.

How does a medical school decide what "counts" for their requirement? What if they won't count a course I took but I disagree with their decision?

Typically, an admissions screener will just look at the name of the title and possibly the department that it's taught in.

If they deny your claim that a course satisfies their requirement, you can ask to appeal that decision and provide your argument for why you think that the course should qualify.

Our recommendations for choosing courses are based on criteria that we think would help you build a strong argument if required to do so. They include:

• Choosing a course with significant writing (>50% of the course grade).
• Choosing a course that focuses on literary analysis.
• Choosing a course that is cross-listed with English or Comparative Literature, since they are the most traditional places to find English courses.

I’m thinking of taking an English course to satisfy premed requirements over the summer. I know HPA says that medical schools prefer that we take prerequisites in the school year. Does this apply to English or just to sciences?

Our advice about avoiding summer courses applies more to sciences: schools want evidence that you can succeed in rigorous science courses, so taking science courses within a full course load during the academic year best simulates the demands of the science course work in health professions school.

It’s less of an issue to take non-sciences in the summer, but keep in mind that there’s an added cost to taking the course, it’ll move fast since summer terms are condensed, and it may take away from your ability to gain other experience that’s important to your holistic candidacy to medical school (e.g., clinical experience, research, service). If you take a class, it might be nice to balance it with some volunteer time at a nearby hospital, clinic, or other patient care facility.

Be sure to get pre-approval through your residential college if you want the course to count for credit here. Even if you don’t want the course to count toward graduation requirements, every course that you take at a college or university must be reported in your medical school application, so try your best to do well!

All requirements for health professional school need to be graded. In all likelihood, you will end up applying to some medical schools that require two semesters of English (about half of them do), and all classes that are required for admission or entrance, whether science or humanities, need to be graded and passed, usually with a grade of C or better.

Nope -- just by the time your schools of interest require that you've completed their requirements (for most this is the summer before matriculation, for some it may be in the fall semester prior to matriculation). Keep in mind that honing your reading speed and reading comprehension skills prior to application will still be important for the Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills section of the MCAT.

Specific Classes

Yes! Writing Sem can count toward the English/Literature requirement for health professions schools.

Could a Freshman Seminar fulfill the English requirement it specifically focuses on the English language?

As usual with these requirements (especially the "English" requirement), it’s better to err on the safe side. We advise you only to count on a freshman seminar as one of your English classes for medical school if the course has "literature" in its title or sounds like something that could be taught in the English department.

It's not quite as simple as saying that the course should focus on the English language. Some medical schools state that one of their two required terms of English must focus on literature; there are not many schools that make this distinction, but there are enough of them that we would advise you to be careful. We also recommend ensuring that at least half of your grade is based on written work, particularly papers that require a drafting process, which will provide further evidence that you're focusing on your writing skills.

The only exception that we know of, to the above comments, is one Canadian medical school (Univ of British Columbia) which insists that "English" courses be taught only in the English Department. Unless you're Canadian, you do not need to worry!

We recommend a literature class, ideally a course in the English or Comparative Literature department (or cross-listed in one of these departments), in which at least half of your grade is based on written work. The content of the course can vary, as long as you're reading literature and analyzing that literature. This is the simplest way to go.

Some medical schools state that one of their two required terms of English must focus on literature, some are most concerned with your practicing your written communication.

We are somewhat partial to courses that will help you develop cultural competency, since this may help you relate to future patients and colleagues. If you have another humanities course in mind outside of these guidelines, and it is writing-intensive, take it through the flowchart on our website (above), and if you're still not sure if it'll work, send us a link to course offerings or a copy of the syllabus and we’ll look it over.

If all of your essays are written in English, you might get away with this, but to err on the safe side, we'd recommend a course taught in English with English readings (it could be texts in translation, but you want to be reading, writing, and communicating in English).

Nope! In fact, one of the most popular courses, Literature and Medicine (SLA 368), is an EM, but it's pretty clearly reading, analyzing, and writing about literature, so it'll be fine!

Not necessarily! If you're not reading, analyzing and writing about literature, it's not likely to satisfy the prerequisite. If it's not a course taken for a grade (like CWR), that won't work, either. If it's taught in another language with reading and writing in that other language, that will also probably not be considered sufficient.

It depends on the school and how closely they scrutinize your course choices. Some schools will ask you to fill out a list of courses that you plan to use to satisfy their requirements. If you list a course that they have questions about, you may be asked to provide a syllabus.

If a school wants writing-intensive courses and the course you're hoping to use for the requirement had a lot of reading and very little writing, they may require you to take an additional course to fulfill their requirement.

Public Speaking (ENG 230) counts toward my LA requirement. Will it count as English for medical school, too?

Public Speaking is a course we’d certainly recommend. It will help you, no doubt, in your future presentations as a med student and doctor. However, it is not a literature course, and we would advise you to not try and count it as your second English class (after your writing seminar). The second English class for medical school needs to be literature-based. Some med schools do specify that they want you to have some expository writing and some literature. Your freshman writing seminar takes care of the writing component; your second class should take care of the literature component. We realize that this is confusing since Public Speaking is taught through the English department.

No, we’re afraid not. After your Freshman Writing Seminar, the second half of the year’s worth of English that many health professional schools require needs to be “writing intensive.” Many schools specify this. There are no essay assignments in LIN 201 and 202.