Take Gen Chemistry at CC over the summer for practice?

Parents Forum
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My son is a current freshman at a 4 year college. Chemistry is required for his major and he has to take it at his university. I have heard from other parents that it is a very difficult class. Can he take chemistry at our local community college over the summer to prep for the course in the fall and not tell his current school since the credits wouldn’t transfer anyway? I think it is a great idea, but not if it is unethical.

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I can’t speak to the ethics of the situation (although on the surface don’t see anything wrong), but keep in mind that even if the credits don’t transfer to his 4-year college, the grade will become part of his college record. Should he apply to grad school, med school, etc., he WILL need to submit a transcript showing this class and the grade he received. If in fact he is pre-med or considering med school, I don’t personally have any experience, but have heard that they don’t generally like seeing this kind of thing. Someone else may have more info on that if it is relevant to his situation (and obviously it may not be). So just some other things to think about.

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General chemistry generally just has high school chemistry as a recommended prerequisite. If the student has not had high school chemistry, community colleges often have a preparatory chemistry course for students who need it before general chemistry.

If pre-med, all college courses must be reported on the medical school application, and repeating a course generally looks bad (grade grubbing) to medical schools.

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Thanks for the replies! He isn’t premed, but graduate school is a possibility and I hadn’t thought of it from that angle. He took chemistry in high school and did well, but it was in 2019-2020 and his school shut down that spring. Just a little scared since its been several years and he didn’t get a full year in high school.

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check out coursera and khan academy for audit options

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www.modernstates.org has a free online chemistry course → https://modernstates.org/course/chemistry/. At conclusion of the class, you take a practice CLEP exam. If you want to take the actual CLEP exam, they’ll give you a voucher which allows you to take the exam for free. You could just skip the part of actually taking the CLEP exam, though.

Might be an easy way to brush up on some chemistry knowledge in the meantime.

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