<p>I'm currently attending a four year university. I recently told my Dad that I would like to take some classes over the summer at my local community college in order to get some more credits under my belt. He told me that this would be a bad idea as it would look bad on my transcript when applying to grad schools a few years down the road.</p>
<p>Is there any validity to this? I've searched on Google regarding this subject and I was unable to find anything.</p>
<p>By “grad school”, do you mean PhD program, or professional school like medical or law school?</p>
<p>On the pre-med forum, it is commonly said that medical schools frown on taking pre-med course work during the summer at schools other than your main school, particularly if the summer pre-med course is at a community college.</p>
<p>For academic graduate programs, I don’t think they care where you get a freshman-level survey course completed, and you can’t take upper-division specialty/major courses at a two-year school anyway. Lots and lots of folks with advanced degrees started their academic careers at a community college - myself included.</p>
<p>I don’t think it matters either way, honestly.</p>
<p>While it’s true that medical schools would prefer you to take them at a four-year college - and your home college, if possible - if you are otherwise an outstanding candidate, I doubt the fact that you took intro bio and ochem at a community college is really going to matter for the majority of schools. It’s the same material.</p>
<p>For grad school, I would say it definitely doesn’t matter. Grad students come from a variety of places - just in my department (top 15) I know people who went to Ivies, to top LACs, to mid-ranked LACs (me), to large flagship state universities (including the “public Ivies” like the UCs and Michigan, as well as your run-of-the-mill flagship state universities like Arizona and Missouri) and to regional state universities (Cal State, SUNY, etc.)</p>
<p>And just like polarscribe said, many top grad students (and I’m sure thousands of doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc.) took their first two whole years of college at a CC, so taking a few classes over the summer isn’t gonna hurt anything.</p>