Hi! This summer I took a general biology class at my community college, and am now planning on taking a chemistry class at the college. If I were to take the chemistry class I would then be able to take Organic Chemistry at the community college my senior year of high school. Would you recommend I do it? I’ve heard many people say that the class is really difficult and I don’t want it messing up my GPA, but also it seems like an interesting course. (I am planning on entering college on a pre-med track).
Thank You!
The first thing you need to know is that any CC coursework you take during high school will be included in GPA/sGPA calculations for medical school admissions.
The other thing you need to know is that not all medical schools will accept CC coursework as fulfilling admission requirements. (There are probably around 2 dozen that don’t accept any CC credits for pre-reqs–including things like math, basic writing skills and psychology.)
Those med schools that do accept CC coursework expect all applicants who do their pre-reqs at a CC supplement those courses with additional upper level coursework in the same dept. at a 4 year college. This means if you take both gen chem and ochem at CC during high school, med schools will expect you will take a additional 16 credits of chemistry in college if you want to be considered a competitive applicant. Your additional chem credits should be equally divided among inorganic/analytic/physical chem and biochem.
CC coursework is typically viewed as less challenging and less rigorous than coursework taken at a 4 year college by med schools adcomms. Pre-meds are strongly recommended to minimize the number of science classes they take at a CC.
Ochem is a difficult class because it’s different from any other science class you’ve had before. It requires a different set of study skills to do well in. You cannot memorize your way through it. (Which is possible to do in gen chem,) Ochem requires understanding over 15 million different compounds. Ochem also requires some basic understanding of physics concepts including quantum mechanic, atomic theory and electrical fields and the ability to apply those concepts to chemistry problems.
tl;dr–don’t take ochem at a CC.
Thank you so much!