Can students who start at CC go to medical school?

A theoretical question: can students who start at community college (CC) for two years, then transfer to a four year school (4Y) for two years, get into medical school, given that medical schools frown on taking the pre-med BCPM courses at CC?

As a practical matter, the volume of pre-med BCPM courses (about 11 semester-long courses) and the prerequisite relationships (5 semesters long for general chemistry 1 → 2 > organic chemistry 1 → 2 → biochemistry) make it impractical to take all of these courses at the 4Y after transfer. If the student is a BCPM major, s/he will need to take some or most of them at CC to prepare for his/her upper level major courses at the 4Y. If the student is not a BCPM major, it may be difficult to fit all 11 courses and a 5 semester long sequence in the two years (4 semesters) at the 4Y where s/he needs to take usually around 8 upper level courses for his/her major among typically around 16 courses total. Taking extra semesters at the 4Y or a post-bacc program may be financially impractical for many of the students who start at CC for cost reasons.

What would medical schools think of the following applicants, assuming that everything else looks good (GPAs, MCAT score, pre-med extracurriculars, etc.):

A. BCPM major takes most or all pre-med BCPM courses at CC, then takes upper level BCPM courses for his/her major at the 4Y after transfer?

B. Non-BCPM major takes some pre-med BCPM courses at CC (e.g. general chemistry 1-2, calculus, and either physics 1-2 or biology 1-2) and then takes the remaining pre-med BCPM courses (e.g. organic chemistry 1-2, biochemistry, statistics, the remaining of physics 1-2 or biology 1-2) at the 4Y after transfer?

  1. There are still a handful of medical schools that simply do not accept CC credits to fulfill med school admission requirements. For these schools, any pre-req classes taken at a CC will disqualify a student from admission.

  2. Allopathic (MD) and osteopathic (DO) medical school view CC classes differently. Osteopathic programs are much more open to accepting CC credits than MD programs are.

  3. Nearly every MD program strongly recommends (READ: requires to be considered a competitive applicant) that CC bio & chem credits must be supplemented with additional upper level science coursework in the same field at a 4 year college.

  4. Most MD programs are implementing “competency-based” admission which eliminates specific required classes in favor a demonstrated competency in specific areas of knowledge. This allows for multiple pathways to demonstrate competence.

If you’d like to see how some medical schools are implementing competency-based admissions for the the academic knowledge portion of med school admission–

UCLA–http://medschool.ucla.edu/apply-competencies
UChicago/Pritzker–https://pritzker.uchicago.edu/page/entrance-requirements#2016-reqs
Drexel–http://drexel.edu/medicine/academics/md-program/md-program-admissions/admissions-recommendations/#DrexelNew
UMichigan–https://medicine.umich.edu/medschool/education/md-program/md-admissions/requirements

RE: Medical schools are never “everything else being equal” when it comes to evaluating candidates. There are too many other factors that influence admission decisions to isolate one factor (i.e. academic pathway) that will make or break an applicant.

In your hypothetical cases, either pathway would be acceptable, but in case B–a non-BCPM CC student who does take BIO 1-2 at a CC would be expected to demonstrate academic competency in biology either through taking additional upper level biology electives at the 4 year or through intense, high level involvement in bio/biochem research activities.

The MCAT will be great equalizer when it comes biology coursework. Although theoretically 2 semesters of intro-level bio is enough to score well on the biology subsection of the MCAT, in reality, it probably isn’t. Advanced coursework in genetics and human biological systems (which comprise 65% of the Bio section’s questions) will improve an applicant’s chances for scoring well in the bio section of the MCAT.

One of my med school classmates did

You can even not take all the required courses and do a post bacc, still get into a good med school. I know some who did.