No, unfortunately I’ve reached out via email to the only professor who teaches it at my local CC and she’s very much doubling down on what I assumed was her stance based on her rate my professor and her course history; “Spanish 201 is a difficult class that even native Spanish speakers consistently fail and due to its rigorous nature, requires extensive in person instruction.”
I could look into AP Spanish Language, However, the AP foreign language (only Spanish lang and lit) classes have in the past been during the AP Calc AB class. Because its the most popular AP at my class however, every know and then it has two periods, so I’ll talk more in depth about the Spanish classes with my counselor this fall and can hopefully get a way into AP Spanish lang. We don’t offer Spanish 4.
Yeah you know, all this thread talk has made me actually research myself all these dual enrollment buisness at other colleges instead of just blindly believing the head of dual enrollment at my hs who happily mentions every five seconds that Dual Enrollment classes transfer to all colleges (to be fair, cal publics are the only colleges most attend) A couple schools will take a low amount of units but for the most part it seems like well…I’m not really benefiting that much by taking them in terms of OOS state schools admissions. I’m certainly going to have to sit down with my counselor and really reconsider my four year plan with all these dual enrollment classes.
Yeah, I have a 4.0 at my Community College, around 34 Units atm, so that’s good at least. I don’t know about Anatomy, hopefully I’ll do well there. All the classes I have been taking have been fulfilling this list of transfer requirements and have been mostly introductory courses that, if I complete and chose to go to a community college (what I thought I was going to do fs until like, 4 months ago) I could focus on lower division requirements, hence the wide range of subjects on my DE classes. They all are mostly there to cross out requirements advised by my CC.
Oh shoot!! I did not know that!! Yeesh just read the thread, makes me want to just take the penalty and unenroll from anatomy this fall and take a semester off. Out of curiosity, does this rule out possibly attending a community college after high school and then going to a four year if I want to go to medical school? Should I take Community college off my safety list and focus only on four years? Yikes yikes YIKES. Might have to cave and start looking at schools in some of the red-restricting-abortion states like UofAlabama and just make an emergency medical travel savings account…
The path to medical school starting at community college and later transferring to a four year school is probably more difficult than doing it all at a four year school, although it is not impossible. A biology or chemistry major may have a clearer path, since upper level courses in the major taken at the four year school would help “validate” the lower level courses taken at community college. Someone in a different major may need to arrange the pre-med courses so that enough of them are deferred until getting to the four year school (although prerequisite sequencing probably means that some of them may need to be started at community college). Perhaps @WayOutWestMom may have more insight.
The good news is that 34 college units of 4.0 GPA will help pad your overall college GPA that will be reported on medical school applications (all college courses and grades, even from when you were in high school are included). However, they are also reported by when taken, so you obviously want to avoid a downward trend through college.
So, basically, you’re going to need a three-pronged approach.
CA publics. You’re going to be a great candidate for UC’s - being top-of-your-class carries weight, in addition to your objectively-strong qualifications. And they’re close enough to your budget that you should be able to fill any gap with guaranteed loans. Debt-free before med school would be better, but if a UC ends up being your best choice, it should be doable. (BTW, what is your closest CSU school, and is it commutable?) Playing the long game here, I wouldn’t cut corners to save UC application fees - Riverside belongs on your list because of the Haider program (your proposed essays are exactly what they are looking for), and Davis does too because it’s one of the best premed options in the UC system (and Honors/Regents would be possible). You can leave out Merced because ELC will get you in anyway, and Santa Cruz because it’s not worth the extreme housing crunch. SB and Irvine are the ones I’d be on the fence about adding to the list or leaving off.
Financial safeties. As you’re realizing, CC isn’t a great choice for premed, because med schools prefer that the prereqs be taking at a 4-year school. UNM tops the list of guaranteed-affordable (likely much more affordable than UC’s) flagship U’s with honors programs, strong Hispanic representation, and progressive state-level politics. (Easy <2hr nonstop flight from LA, too.) AZ schools deserve consideration if the political-battlefield aspect is acceptable to you. Alabama… great school and great money, but not sure you need to venture that far from home (and that far out of your political comfort zone) when the southwestern schools are as generous as they are.
Private colleges and universities where full-tuition merit or better exists.
(Lots of great schools that do give merit top out at half-tuition merit; I would be cheerleading for Scripps College, for example, which is great for premed and close to home, but their max merit award is half-tuition, and the sticker price is bonkers, leaving a balance of almost 50K/year even with the top scholarship… so that’s a nope, and there are many others in this category as well.) A few examples, looking ahead:
Women’s colleges that give big scholarships: Mt. Holyoke in the MA 5-college consortium, and if you’d consider Atlanta (somewhat akin to considering Tucson), look at Agnes Scott College, which is an excellent school with cross-registration at Emory & Georgia Tech, very diverse and generous with merit.
Washington & Lee in VA. T20 LAC where 10% of admits get full-ride scholarships, and diversity is a factor in awarding these, so you could be a strong candidate.
USC, as already mentioned, but getting enough merit is unlikely unless you really knock the PSAT out of the park, and even then, half-tuition (not enough) is more likely than full-tuition.
(The fourth “prong” is tippy-top elite U’s where you’d be full-pay, like Brown, unfortunately. I don’t see how these work unless the situation with your dad is more along the lines of “an Ivy would actually - and reliably - shake the money tree”)
It sounds like your family depends on you a lot. Are they starting to prepare for you to be away at college?
Best choice in terms of opportunity or financials? Like, lets say horray I get full ride at like UNM or some other school but I also get into UCR/UCD but I’d have to take out guaranteed loans – would going to the UC over the full ride be worth it in the long run?
Cal State La, though Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach are a doable commute.
You know, we’ve talked about this and I’m very lucky to have a family in the camp that’s like “you might need to go somewhere far away for college, but college will be able to help your family more.” Obviously I do feel that classic latina guilt, but y’know push comes to shove moving away isn’t something I’m too opposed to. Might be better to get some freedom anyways.
Going to med school after starting at a CC is possible, but requires very careful planning.
The general advice is to take mostly your GEs at CC and save as many of your core science classes as possible for whatever 4 year college you end up attending. CC->4 year transfers may take calc, stats, English/writing skills, psych, sociology, intro bio, gen chem, and possibly physics. (Physics only if your articulation agreement requires it.)
if you major in bio, chem or biochem, you be taking additional UL chem and bio classes anyway once you get to your 4 year.
The CC->4 year route really doesn’t work for pre-meds with non-science majors.
The other issue that CC->4 year transfers run into is the need to take at least one gap year between college and med school. Since the med school application process takes a full year, transfer students simply aren’t in a good place after only 1 semester of college to request LORs from professors or have sufficient research experience to list on an application.
The gap year (or 2 or 3) isn’t big deal since > 2/3rds of med school applicants now matriculate only after taking gap year(s) to bulk up their ECs. But you need to know this in advance so you can plan to use your gap year effectively.
No, you will taking out between $200-$500K in student loans to pay for med school. Scholarships to pay for med school are very uncommon. You need to minimize your undergrad educational debt as much as possible. Loans for med school are all unsubsidized–which means interest starts accruing from the minute the funds are disbursed and keeps on accruing all thru med school and all through residency. (Residents are paid not terribly well and work up to 80 hours/week so there are no second jobs allowed. If you end up matching in a high COL area, you may be living from paycheck-to-paycheck all throughout residency.) Interest can easily double your original debt by the time you start your first attending job. You really don’t want to be one of the doctors who still owe on their education loans into the 50’s and 60’s. (And yes, that does happen all too often.)
The only way UCR would make sense (over a free ride or free tuition) would be if you were accepted into the Thomas Haider Early Admission program. because it would spare the expense and emotional toil that applying to med school takes.
You know, we’ve talked about this and I’m very lucky to have a family in the camp that’s like “you might need to go somewhere far away for college, but college will be able to help your family more.” Obviously I do feel that classic latina guilt, but y’know push comes to shove moving away isn’t something I’m too opposed to. Might be better to get some freedom anyways.
Good, because being a successful pre-med is going to require your full attention and efforts. And med school is all-consuming. You will not have time to deal with any family responsibilities. Med students need to be pretty selfish if they want to survive med school.
This is a very good question. It’s worth pondering ahead of time, but I don’t think you’ll be able to feel completely settled about the answer until you know what your best option is in each category and can compare them head-to-head. I think you just need to pursue both categories for now, and be aware that there may be a decision of this nature in your future, if some amazing best-of-all-worlds scholarship doesn’t swoop in and make the question moot. For now, there are just too many variables in play to say for sure that one route will be better than the other.
But the good news is that having at least one good option is virtually assured. IMHO, what’s more important than ranking your options, at this stage, is seeing the strengths of each option and being able to see yourself being happy with multiple possible paths. If you can picture yourself having a great experience at UNM and saving a ton of $… but you also love the idea of your favorite UC’s… that will be a tough decision, but a “good-vs-better” decision, not one where you’ll ever have to feel like you’re settling.
CSULA has some big scholarships, doesn’t it? Overall, if you have multiple commutable CSU options, I don’t really see the point of commuting to a CC and navigating the minefield of CC-to-med-school issues. But as you say, going farther from home and getting some freedom and space to focus fully on your education (and on just coming into your own as a person) could be the right thing anyway. I’m glad your family sees this and is already preparing to support that choice.
Yes, women who get raped should make better choices…like not to live in places where they cannot find appropriate medical care after being sexually assaulted.
OP…there are many, many colleges out there. You don’t need to live in Alabama just because a stranger on the internet thinks it’s the perfect place for you.
Move on from the back and forth about abortion access please. The point has already been made numerous times on this thread. Further posts will be deleted.
Since you seem very goal directed and are serious about medicine as a career, I want to share some resources with you. These will give an introduction to medicine as a career and will help you prepare for the rigorous undergrad coursework being a STEM student requires.
Goals and Objectives
Med-COR is organized around five objectives:
To improve the academics and study skills of students of color and students from disadvantaged backgrounds so that they will be competitive for admission to top-ranked colleges and universities.
To provide students with mentors and role models who will motivate them towards academic excellence. Primary mentors are students of color in college who serve as facilitators (tutors). Secondary mentors are medical students at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.
To expose high school students to various healthcare professions and inform them about the prerequisites for entry into these health careers.
To enhance student self-esteem through group identification and group interaction.
To educate students about the healthcare needs and problems of communities of color through group discussions and dialogue with health professionals.
Med-COR is sponsored by USC Keck School of Medicine
Several other pipeline programs for HS students are sponsored by UCLA/Geffen School of Medicine
Students with an interest in biomedical research enroll in a semester-long, for-credit honors program in which they receive instruction in experimental design, patient safety and ethics; and mentored research at one of the CTSI medical-research sites—either UCLA, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center or the Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. High school seniors taking honors courses or advanced placement courses are eligible to enroll. The program accepts 10-17 students each year. The course is 21 weeks long, six hours per week consisting of activities at LB Poly and activities at one of the three medical centers. Activities at LB Poly include journal club, seminars, and biomedical ethics discussions.The course concludes with student presentations of each project at a poster presentation which is held at Cedars-Sinai.
Pre-Med Summer Scholar Program
The Pre-Med Summer Scholar Program is an intense, one-week, primarily educational program incorporating medical guest speakers and hospital-related tours and activities giving the Summer Scholar an involved sense of working within the field of medicine.
UCLA Match
The UCLA MATCH (Mentorship and Advocacy in Teaching Clinical Health-Related Research) is a pilot program designed for high school students from communities underrepresented in STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) to increase diversity in the scientific community through career mentorship and education supporting clinical research pathways in medicine. UCLA MATCH students are paired with undergraduate UCLA students from the Clinical and Translational Science Institute’s Research Associates Program (CTSI-RAP), to participate in 8 weeks of didactic lectures and small group activities centered around patient-oriented research.
MEDPEP is a medical preparation and education pipeline program designed to support low-income Latino and other underrepresented minority (URM) students through their community college experience and transition to four-year universities and health professional programs. MEDPEP’s program components include personal, academic, and leadership development; conference and research participation; and peer mentoring support.
Charles R. Drew University School of Medicine offers a number of pipeline programs for student from disadvantaged backgrounds.
A list of their Pipeline Programs for K-12 students is available at the link
Doesn’t New Mexico Med give priority to instate residents? (~10% out of state). How difficult is it to obtain instate residency as an undergrad with parents who live in CA?
I think I explained the situation in an earlier comment but basically, no Spanish 102 is a regular Monday Wednesday/Tuesday Thursday course from 10-3 and my high school mandates that upperclassmen with free periods are only allowed to have their last period or first period as a free period; ig its district policy or something. My CC’s only Spanish Pathway is Spanish 101 “Introductions to Spanish Language and Culture” → Spanish 102 “Advanced Spanish Language and Culture” → Spanish 201 “Introduction to Spanish Literature” → Spanish 202 “Something super duper complicated involving Spanish Literature”. Unfortunately, no intermediate. It’s Lit or Death
Dude the suggestion of Ethics with a science focus sounds super cool and I’ll probably replace Microbio or Physiology with it, but unfortunately, my school’s dual enrollment office has a penalty system student agreement where if I drop 4 classes after registering I lose priority registration status So I’ll probably just wade out Eng 201 and not put it on my hs transcript.
Umm I could look into it! I mean, not to be a hypocrite since I’m kinda doing this with English but wouldn’t it look weird to colleges that I opted out of an AP class (AP Stats) to take a dual enrollment equivalent? I feel like reading somewhere college admissions officers think that’s sketch. But the benefit with DE Stats is that I could prob do both hat and EMR…eh it’s a year from now, I’ll decide then.
That’s a thing??? I’ll most certainly be looking through my silly little CC course catalog, they both sound pretty cool but in an effort to save myself from hurting my science GPA I’d probs do cultural. Thanks for the advice!!!
So I’ll probably just wade out Eng 201 and not put it on my hs transcript.