Community College Credit

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>Taking your pre-med required courses at your four year university instead of your community college(cc) would probably be impossible here in California since the pre-med courses are all lower division and often prerequisites for your major. To transfer from a cc to a University of California (UC) or California State University (CSU) campus you need to have 60 semester or 90 quarter hours of transferable courses and they must include lower division English, Math and specified General Education courses. You also have to apply to a specific major and to be competitive or even eligible for admission to most majors it is required that a student complete all of their lower division prerequisites at their cc as well.</p>

<p>For example, my younger son plans to start cc this Summer and later transfer to UC Berkeley, UC Davis or UC Santa Cruz as a Physics major. However, before he can transfer these UCs will require that he finish all his lower division general education requirements, including English at his cc. They will also require that before he can transfer to a UC that he takes all of the lower division prerequisites for his major at his cc as well which will consist of three semesters of Calculus, one semester of Linear Algebra, one semester of Differential Equations, three semesters of Calculus based General Physics and one semester of General Chemistry. Once you transfer the UCs will usually allow you to stay for just two years so he will have to spend all of his time at his four university taking upper division courses in Physics and Math in order to graduate when his two years at the UC are up.</p>

<p>Students majoring in Biology or Chemistry, who account for many pre-med students, would have to finish two semesters of General Biology with labs, two semesters of General Chemistry with labs, at least one semester of Organic Chemistry with lab, two semesters of Physics with labs and two semesters of Calculus at their cc before they would be admitted by a UC. The UCs are adamant that cc transfers be out of their UC within two years of enrolling which only leaves time to complete the required upper division courses in the student’s major to graduate.</p>

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<p>^^Sure, that is true for most undergrad transfers…the receiving college wants to be sure that the transferring student can finish in two more years. But what most of us have been recommending is to take some upper division science classes at the four year Uni. </p>

<p>In your son’s case, he will have plenty of physics courses at UC. He could also take Organic, P-Chem, and/or upper division Bio. And no, he will not be 100% taking physic classes unless he wants to. Cal, for example, shows two physics classes per semester for upper division students in a typical schedule. But even if he takes more math, all counts for sGPA.</p>

<p>[physics</a> @ berkeley - The Major and Minor Program](<a href=“Home | Physics”>Home | Physics)</p>

<p>Bio majors would have plenty of upper division choices at the four-year Uni.</p>

<p>Where it will get real speculative, is a lit-humanities-biz-non-science major who completes every prereq at the juco. That student would need to rock the MCAT to validate the juco science grades.</p>