Hey, I’m a sophomore and I’m not sure about whether or not I should start community college next year so that I can graduate high school with an Associate’s degree, or attend a 4-year University in preparation for medical school. I know that I wanna be a doctor, however if I go to community college then I feel like it would be a lot of steps to transfer to a new college and having to adjust to the new atmosphere while trying to prepare for the MCAT in the same year. The benefits of community college is that I can graduate college a bit earlier than expected, but that doesn’t really outweigh my reasons for not going. If I go to a 4-year University, I feel like I can get the full college experience and I’ll be in the same place for all four years, so I wouldn’t have to worry about transferring credits. I’d also get to apply as a freshman like most applicants, where as someone who graduated from Community College, I’d apply as a junior, which means that it would be harder to get accepted (for most schools, anyway).
I know some people may think that it’s a bit too early for me to be worrying about this, but I like figuring out a solution to these things while there’s still a lot of time ahead. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Graduating high school with an associate’s degree still makes you a first-year applicant. How many of those credits transfer will depend on the university, but don’t expect to graduate in 2 years.
And that’s before I tell you that it is extremely difficult to get into med school when graduating in less than 4 years.
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i thought that if you have an associate’s then you would apply to a university as a transfer student because you would have completed two years of college study.
That would be the case if you graduate HS and then complete an associates. It is not the case if you complete an associates while in HS.
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For most universities, transfer students are defined as those who take college courses (or a certain amount of college courses) after leaving high school. Rules vary somewhat, but those who take college courses only during high school would still generally be considered frosh applicants.
For a specific university, you may want to check the rules of that specific university.
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I don’t understand what your rush is to get through high school. Believe it or not there’s a lot of information that you miss if you graduate early from high school and I’m not talking about the social aspect.
Our daughter just graduated from her medical school program. It was long. It was hard. it was very, very expensive for us but our daughter had an overall good experience.
When she was applying to her various med schools, across the country, the admissions committees asked about: her high school experiences, her college experiences, her lab experiences, as well as her experiences in studying abroad. They wanted to know about all of her summer jobs and volunteering activities during high school and college because, somewhere in her “skills set”, she had “absently” written that she knew how to drive a forklift. That “minor” mistake led to curiosity and intrigue on the part of those interviewing committees.
These schools wanted to see and hear about her personal experiences with others. Those kinds of experiences, working with the public, take time to develop. She got in because she had the right kinds of experiences that they wanted, which had developed over time. A lot of her classmates were excellent candidates, with great scores but a lot of them were not admitted to med school.
The classes of med school students are very, very, small so they have to pick a class that is going to work well together under pressure and stressful times. Did I mention that it’s expensive? Have you worked and saved money for your college expenses?
I don’t think rushing through anything is going to help you get into med school. That’s just my personal opinion.
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I don’t wish to rush through high school, my apologies for the confusion. I just wanted to figure out which path would be the best for me college-wise. Me being a prospective pre-med is only a small part of it.
This statement is what made me misunderstand your rush.
Most “premed” students haven’t completed the upper level coursework required of the MCAT, nor the time to study for it, as a rising junior (community college transfer).
My daughter took a year off after graduation, to study and to volunteer in a clinic. A number of her acquaintances did the same thing. @WayOutWestMom has two physician daughters. She can give you more Information on the specifics of the time involved.
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As a pre-med, remember that:
- College courses taken while in high school will count toward GPA recalculation for medical school applications (A = acceptable, B = bad, C = catastrophic, D = disaster, F = forget it). Repeating courses (or AP credit) must be marked, and repeating courses does not cause grade replacement.
- Medical schools frown on using only community college courses to fulfill pre-med course requirements, so it is generally recommended to take at least some upper level BCPM (biology, chemistry, physics, math) courses at a four year school if you use community college courses for a significant portion of pre-med course requirements.
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Medical schools strongly prefer applicants take the required courses at a 4 year college if it’s at all possible. CC classes are considered less competitive and less rigorous than coursework taken at a 4 year. Students who do take CC classes are expected to supplement all CC classes with additional upper level science/math electives taken at a 4 year college if they want to be considered a competitive applicants for med school admission.
CC transfers will also need sufficient time at 4 year college to finish pre-req classes and to make the connections they’ll need to get strong LORs from your college science professors. (Letters from CC instructors are not acceptable for med school admissions.)
Applicants who are younger than typical (under 22 years old) have a much harder getting accepted to med school than older, more traditonal-age students. Adcomms will question both their motivations and maturity. It’s up to the younger applicant to prove they have right reasons for choosing med school and the poise, maturity and people skills to handle openly discussing intimate and potential disturbing topics with individual who are much older and more worldly than themselves.
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I agree with the general sentiment. I do not see much point in rushing things.
One thing to think about: Medical school acceptance will require quite a bit of experience in a medical environment. Rather than rushing to get an associate’s degree while still in high school, you might want to think about starting to get this experience.
Another issue: University premed classes are tough. Some of them will be tougher than anything that you have seen up to now. The classes will be full of very strong students. Both daughters had majors that overlapped with premed so they took quite a few classes that were full of premed students. One daughter postponed organic chemistry (a famously difficult class) until her Junior year of university. This was reflected in her (very good) grade for the course. You really will be a stronger student as you get older. There really are classes that you are not ready for yet, but that you will be ready to take and do well in as you get older.
I do not think that rushing to take the really hard classes at a younger age is the way to maximize your chances of doing well in these classes.
You are thinking about what classes to take during your junior year of high school. I think that this is a good time to start thinking about this.
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It’s kind of premature to worry about medical school right now. The vast majority of premed “starters” end up finding passions in other things. I started out the same as you, but I ended up in computer programming, which is kind of fun…because I get to break things for a living. I’d be a lousy surgeon! I would say, do whatever you can afford. If you decide medicine, your grades and MCAT scores will do all the talking for you. There’s no shame in starting out in community college. In fact, it’s a reflection of maturity in many ways, because most students who go there are paying their own way.
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