It’s true, unfortunately. Not all med school schools accept CC credits and even more med schools don’t accept AP credits.
Please read this pinned post in the Pre Med forum:
Med schools are rightly skeptical of younger-than-typical med school applicants. They will question their maturity and their commitment to medicine as career. (And whether there’s been undue parental influence on their choice of profession.) Proving otherwise falls squarely on the shoulders of the applicant.
There is also an issue with timing if you child wants to matriculate directly into med school from undergrad. Since the med school application process takes a full year, your son will apply in June of his junior year to matriculate in August of the following year. That means in the first 20 or so months of undergrad, he will need to not only finish his pre-reqs, but also study for & take the MCAT, gather strong LORs from at least 3 professors, complete several hundreds of hours of the expected pre-med ECs (community service, physician shadowing, clinical experience, leadership roles in his ECs and lab or clinical research). It’s a lot to expect any person to do.
RE: his choice of schools…
If he is 1000% sure he wants medicine, take the least expensive route possible. Med schools place little value on the name on the diploma. And they don’t adjust GPAs for “grade-deflating” undergrads or majors.
If he has any doubts about medicine–and remember that 60-75% of freshmen premeds never actually apply to med school–then he should choose a school where he has the best opportunities to network and explore other career paths.
Note that most of those who do drop off the pre-med path do so not because they don’t have the grades for med school, but because they find other careers and other passions along the way. Or because they decide it’s not worth postponing their lives for 7-15 years while they finished their medical training and going hundred of thousands of $$$$$ into debt.
Anyway, your son has some great choices!