<p>I am currently in a community college and am transferring to Rutgers in the fall. I read on here that attending community college looks really bad on med school applications. I have done almost all of my med school prerequisites at the community college. (I am taking physics II and orgo II this upcoming semester.)</p>
<p>Is this really bad? I have aimed for med school my whole entire life. It's dumb that this can hurt my chances. Is it ok if I have a good reason though? I'm here on the NJ Stars scholarship. I get two years completely free and then I get $7,000 for my four year school. </p>
<p>I don't know what to think of this anymore because I'm worried that I made a mistake at attending the college instead of going straight to a 4-yr school.</p>
<p>Its not the best situation of course. The thing is its not good to do all you prereqs (gen chem, orgo, bio, physics, calc, english) at a CC. The best thing you can do now is do upper level course work in chemistry and biology at the four year university to show that you can handle it. I don’t know if its necessary to do upper level course work in physics and calc because there’s not much after intro physics and calc for the premed student. </p>
<p>You should also consider applying the summer after your senior year and taking a gap year during which you will be interviewing so that medschools can see two years of coursework at the four year. </p>
<p>Also, do well 30+ on your MCAT because as one medschool admissions officer described it, the MCAT is the great equalizer.</p>
<p>There are many roads to medical school. All of them are difficult and in the scheme of things, when people are talking about going to community college being bad, what they’re really saying is that it’s less than ideal. </p>
<p>This is the way I think about it, let’s say that theoretically you have to get 825 “med school points” along the way as a premed to give you a reasonable chance of getting into medical school. If a “perfect” applicant (and there’s no such thing) rates 1000, then maybe going to CC (if everything else was perfect) drops you to 950. In other words, if you were exactly perfect and didn’t miss a beat, you’d still get into med school despite going to community college. There are lots of things that are disadvantages, there are many things that would garner extra points. The reason people discourage going to CC is that getting to that 825 is hard enough as it is, and no one wants to be put at an immediate disadvantage. That said, there are ways to minimize the impact of going to a CC - discussing the reasons you chose to go there in your personal statement, limiting the number of core pre-reqs because the assumption is that CC’s are less academically challenging, and so on. Maybe doing those things means you’re only deducted 30 points instead of the 50.</p>
<p>Now, above, I said maybe going to a CC is only a knock of 50 points if things go perfectly, which for the most part is tied to academic rigor and overall perception. The big problem though is not simply that isolated. Statistically though, CC’s are a dead end for a great many students regardless of their initial aspirations (I’m not saying that this is true in your case). A large number of students who start at CC’s planning on going to a 4 year University, never make it get their Associates degree, and even those that do a majority will never move on to a 4 year institution. Even if you overcome those odds, you’re behind in terms of establishing yourself on campus at the 4 year institution. Other people have been there for 2 years getting involved on campus, doing community service, finding leadership positions and cultivating relationships for letters of rec. They’ve been able to make the connection to a research position and don’t have the added stress of establishing a life outside of school (new friends, new social routines, adjusting to a new place). These are all things that can be overcome, but they pile up and make a difficult journey that much tougher.</p>
<p>So really, it’s fighting multiple things. Med school adcoms may not “like” CC’s, but the issue is bigger than that.</p>