<p>I know a lot of people keep asking about taking pre-med reqs at community colleges, but that is NOT my concern. My concern is similar but not the same... I know these questions are probably obvious to a lot of you but I am fairly new to the college game. I joined the military at an early age and am just now starting my academics.</p>
<p>1 - Do Medical Schools frown about any community college work in general? I'm curious about whether or not Med Schools favor students who took all 4 years of their studies at their 4 year school over the ones who transferred (even if all prerequisites were completed at the 4 year school)</p>
<p>2 - What if you want to take Biology/Chemistry/Calculus/Physics courses at your CC simply because you want to learn all that you can? For example: If I took Calculus I at a CC and then took Calculus II at the 4 year school would my application to med school be frowned upon just because I wanted to learn as much math as possible by starting it at my CC?</p>
<p>(okay, three questions!)</p>
<p>3 - Do the advisers/counselors at community colleges work with you to avoid taking your pre-med reqs at the CC? I would really hate to see my Associate's studies end up interfering with my pre-med pathway.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot to anyone who has advice/answers!!</p>
<p>I may be wrong, but I don’t see why med schools would care if you went to a CC and took classes such as US History, British Lit, Speech, psych, sociology, Art History, and such to fulfill the “other” gen ed requirements.</p>
<p>I don’t have any particular expertise in this area either, but I’ll offer further speculation.</p>
<p>What medical schools don’t want is for applicants at fancy four-year colleges to go do all their pre-requisites for med school at cc during the summer. If you go to Stanford, take organic chemistry at Stanford, not at your local cc because you think it’ll be easier. This seems to me like a very different case from a person who begins school at a cc because it fits the budget, and then transfers to a four-year college with 60 credits.</p>
<p>I’d suppose further, that taking introductory chemistry at cc won’t be a problem if you take organic, or some subsequent chemistry class, at a four-year college and do well in that.</p>
<p>I’m sure someone at your cc can give you a more informed answer than mine.</p>
<p>*Do the advisers/counselors at community colleges work with you to avoid taking your pre-med reqs at the CC? I would really hate to see my Associate’s studies end up interfering with my pre-med pathway.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>I could be wrong, but I don’t think you have to get an Associates in order to transfer. When I was in college, I remember that one of my friends who was at a CC just took some classes that he needed, and then transferred to a 4 year without graduating with an AA. he said that he would have had to take unnecessary classes at the CC in order to get the AA, so he didn’t. He just transferred. </p>
<p>So, if that’s still possible, do that.</p>
<p>How long do you plan on being at your CC? Can you just go for 2-3 semesters and just do “non-med school” related courses (like the ones I mentioned above)?</p>
<p>If you do end up taking medschool classes I think the important thing is to take upper level courses to prove that you can handle the material at a four year college. So if you take genchem at your CC then take orgo at the four year. Or if you take intro bio, then take a few upper level courses at the four year. Med schools also have annoying english requirements and some even have “humanities” requirements so getting those out of the way and saving the premed classes for the four year is an option. </p>
<p>Another suggestion that hasn’t been brought up yet is showing two years of work at the four year, instead of just one. This might mean you have to apply a cycle later than “normal”</p>
<p>* How long do you plan on being at your CC? Can you just go for 2-3 semesters and just do “non-med school” related courses (like the ones I mentioned above)? *</p>
<p>Yeah, you’re correct. Right now I’m extremely ambitious about starting pre-med, and I talked to the University that I plan on transferring to and they told that I only need 26 credits to transfer, so I guess I’m going to do that and try my best not to take any pre-med reqs while earning those 26 credits. The only reason I am attending a CC is because my high school GPA was extremely weak (I’m a fairly smart person, I was just arrogant back then and wanted to join the military).</p>
<p>I once had a thirst for physical improvement. But now I crave intellect. Things change.</p>
<p>So 26 credits is like a year? 2 semesters. You should get prereqs out of the way. As in go to the university you plan on transferring to and look at the course offerings. See if for calculus, bio, chem, physics, etc… if there are any prereqs that you might need that you haven’t taken yet. And of course for any other classes you are interested in taking. You can also get those two semesters of english out of the way. </p>
<p>Also, if you are doing just a year at the CC then you should be on schedule to apply the normal cycle (summer after your junior year) unless of course you want to take a year off, which i think is a great idea.</p>
<p>Do you mean for example if I want to take Calculus at the 4 year school I should see if I need to take a prereq for that at the CC? (Pre-Calc or something)</p>
<p>Sorry, I was a little confused by your wording. Also, I don’t think I would take a year off. I am already 21 and I don’t feel like taking forever to get to Med School.</p>
<p>Oh, and just to confirm: Taking upper-level pre-med courses at your 4 year school makes up for if you took any of the lower-level courses at the CC in respect to your Med School application, right? (again with the Calculus example)</p>
<p>PS: I really appreciate the responses so far.</p>
<p>Question 1) Yes</p>
<p>Question 2) What I meant was that if you were transferring after two years of CC and then applied in the regular cycle 1 year after transferring to four year college, so 3 years of college total, med schools would only see 1 year of work at the four year college. By applying a cycle late, medschools would see 2 years at the four year college. This would be to your advantage but it would mean that you would have graduated when you are interviewing. Normally you interview during your senior year after submitting apps the summer before senior year. Since you are only spending a year at the CC this should not be a college.</p>
<p>Question 3) Yes</p>
<p>Also if you want an opinion from someone who actually has credentials you should really contact the premed advisor at the four year college you are transferring to.</p>
<p>*I talked to the University that I plan on transferring to and they told that I only need 26 credits to transfer, *</p>
<p>Try to do at least 30 over 2 semesters.</p>
<p>To get non-premed General Ed req’ts out of the way…you could take…</p>
<p>Pre-cal
Sociology
Psychology
Some kind of fine arts …like Art History
US History (2 semesters may be needed).
Some kind of literature class</p>
<p>I don’t know if med schools would frown on taking a semester or two of Frosh Comp at a CC.</p>
<p>What is your major going to be?</p>
<p>Thanks ChemFreak, I understand now.</p>
<p>What is your major going to be?</p>
<p>After a hefty amount of research and personal consideration, I decided I’m going to major in Psychology. I’m doing this because I’m interested in the subject and it seems that the majority of the advice I’ve read about points towards the fact that majoring in science doesn’t help your med school application as much as people think it does. Also, my long-term goal is to become a Psychiatrist, so I figured some Psychology background would be a possible ‘plus’.</p>
<p>GPA seems to be the most important factor (next to your MCAT score) in your application to Med School, and majoring in Psychology would help with my GPA quite a bit due to my strong interest in the subject.</p>
<p>Hey, another question…</p>
<p>Should I not start community college during the summer? I heard that summer coursework doesn’t look good on a Med School application. Should I apply for the Fall or does it not matter?</p>
<p>Well, if Psych is going to be your undergrad major, I would think that it would be ok for you to do those undergrad pre-reqs at the CC as long as they aren’t also Pre-med pre-reqs.</p>
<p>What are the undergrad pre-reqs for Psych at the 4 year that you’ll eventually be going to?</p>
<p>Okay, well I may be wrong but from what I’ve gathered the only pre-req for the Psychology program at my 4 year school is to have 26 credits to transfer and to have completed the Intro. to Psychology course to be able to take the core Psychology courses.</p>
<p>They have a vast amount of courses for the major but all of them only have the pre-req of Intro. to Psychology. So it looks like my major won’t be interfering with my Pre-Med studies at all… possibly making my course planning very flexible.</p>
<p>This makes me wonder exactly what I should be focusing on at my community college. I guess I could just fulfill my General Ed. requirements at my community college by taking some lower-division pre-med reqs and then taking the upper-division equivalents at my 4 year school?</p>
<p>PS: What do you guys think about the summer semester at a CC? Should I wait until the Fall?</p>
<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>
<p>What you’re saying makes sense, I can’t deny that. But it also doesn’t add up. There are a lot of pre-meds who go to community college first and then transfer to a 4 year school for various reasons and still get accepted into Medical School. I doubt a vast majority of these people took their pre-med reqs at their CC’s taking into account that it looks terrible on your Med School application.</p>
<p>What I’m inferring from your post (please correct me if I’m wrong) is that if you are going to a community college and then transferring to a 4 year, you have no choice but to major in Biology/Chemistry because the only courses you have time for at your 4 year school is the upper-divisions of your major. I infer this in respect to the fact that you need to take upper-division equivalencies at your 4 year in order to make up for pre-med reqs taken at a CC (so your Med School application is not frowned upon).</p>
<p>That seems quite odd to me. Maybe that’s just a California thing?</p>
<p>bump!</p>
<p>Interested in more responses.</p>
<p>Are you in Calif?</p>
<p>Is your goal to transfer to a UC? which one?</p>
<p>If not, where will you be transferring to.</p>
<p>The point about majoring in Bio or Chem makes sense.</p>
<p>No, I live in Minnesota.</p>