Summer Courses at Berkeley vs. Summer Community College Courses

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>What's the difference between taking courses during the summer at Berkeley and taking transferable courses at your local community college?</p>

<p>I don't want to stay in Berkeley for the summer (I want to go home) and I'm thinking that I'll just take local community college courses to cover any breadth, etc. that I need. But I know a bunch of people who are planning to stay at Berkeley and take courses over the summer. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm thinking I don't know why they would want to because...1) you could go home to a community college and take a transferable course and 2) it's cheaper 3) prob easier</p>

<p>Anyone care to explain? Thanks</p>

2

<p>Community courses will transfer (assuming IGETC) but will not count towards your Cal gpa. Yes, cheaper, and a LOT easier.</p>

3

<ol>
<li> Only some courses are transferable. Check assist.org.</li>
<li> It's so much cheaper.</li>
<li> It's so much easier.</li>
</ol>

<p>I took all but one of my 7 breadth courses at my local community college. I was able to get through my most hated humanities courses in 6 weeks with flying colors and free up my regular Berkeley semesters for hard sciences.</p>

4

<p>Depending on your major, you can even do your major prereqs at CC, though it is not always advisable.</p>

5

<p>@tastyeef: is it possible to do r1a-r1b at community colleges?</p>

6

<p>^
ASSIST</a> Prompt Page</p>

<p>change the community college to whichever one you live near and use the For General Education/Breadth dropbox</p>

7

<p>bluebayou
where does it say that it won't count towards the cal gpa?</p>

8

<p>CC courses never count toward your UC GPA.</p>

9

<p>is that a good or bad thing?</p>

10

<p>if u fail cc courses.. i guess that's a good thing... and if u get A's then i guess it's bad. ?? lol</p>

11

<p>^
wait what about if u apply to med schools. will they factor in like ur cc grades?</p>

12

<p>^yes, if they didn't that would mean that no transfers could get into med school</p>

13

<p>hmm. right. ok. so would it be better to take courses @ berkeley or at a CC...? -.-</p>

14

<p>CC for breadth
for major courses, you need to talk to your major advisor</p>

15

<p>hmm. there's not that many breadth reqs in CNR.. so i guess it's ok.</p>

16

<p>Would grad schools look down on your community college grades if they weren't requirements for your major but they were pre-reqs for admissions to the grad school?</p>

17

<p>So med schools count your grades from CC even if you aren’t a transfer student? </p>

<p>Why don’t people just take a whole bunch of CC classes to boost their GPA’s for the AMCAS then?</p>

18

<p>The admissions committees are said to look down on that, but the odds are that if it makes a major difference in GPA, that is more valuable than the taint of doing it in CC. If it isn’t a huge upswing, then they assume you ducked the classes at Cal because you knew you would perform poorly.</p>

<p>Same taint as if you retook every Cal premed course in CC and got A on everything there. While that would average your GPA up (since they count both versions of the course), they ‘expect’ that a retake would earn an A when they subjectively look over your application. </p>

<p>In spite of all this, they seem to weight GPA hugely and factors like where you took the class much less so. At least judging by behaviors and admissions. </p>

<p>On the other hand, two students of reasonable close GPA, with one taking the requirements in CC and the other taking them at a more challenging school - no contest. </p>

<p>The CC route would be a kind of desperation move, if the GPA without using CC for the premed stuff would be so low as to guarantee no admission to medical school, but with a high enough CC GPA you would at least stand a shot. If you had a shot either way, you would really hurt yourself with an obvious use of CC to shelter grades. If you had no shot otherwise, you don’t have much to lose. </p>

<p>If you can just predict ahead of time what your GPA would be for 3-4 years of classes at Cal, you could make the choice early enough to matter. (or just figure out your alternative career right up front).</p>

19

<p>I’m curious whether I should take 2-3 math classes at Berkeley during the summer to get a head start or to do it in CC. I’d imagine that CC would be much cheaper although the Berkeley summer session would help prepare me. With some financial aid, I can’t tell for sure how much more it’ll cost over CC.</p>

20

<p>Well, I would say that 3 math classes would be a little over the top. From what I’ve seen, during the summer math classes meet every day with a 1 hr lecture and 1hr discussion daily. That is 6 hours a day, every day of the week, plus lots of work.</p>

<p>I would stick with 2. I would also say that taking them at a CC will probably not prepare you nearly as well for the next course, and the Berkeley ones will probably be much more valuable.</p>