<p>Hi, </p>
<p>I am going to be a frosh at UC Berkeley next year. I have been doing some research for my classes, and I was reading that taking pre reqs at a community college is not a bad idea. I do know that med schools penalize a little in the process, but to what extent? Would they penalize me if I took my pre reqs at a commuinty college and got a 4.0? </p>
<p>I was thinking that I finish a few of my pre-med requirnments at a community college to bring my GPA up and take few pre-med reqs at Berkeley. </p>
<p>Is this a good idea? </p>
<p>Thank you very much in advance for all the input.</p>
<p>I think that the general advice is that if you’re going to take classes a community college, it’s better to take classes that aren’t the pre-reqs for medical school. For example, get a sociology requirement out of the way, or take an intro language course or something like that. Medical schools might be wary of students who look like they might have taken some of the pre-med requirements at a place other than their undergraduate institution in order to get a better grade.</p>
<p>^if that’s true, then it is very two-faced and cheap of med schools. all you hear about is how med schools don’t really consider too heavily that getting good grades at a top tier institution is much more difficult than getting good grades at a school of lesser quality/prestige. if that’s the way the wanna run their admissions, i.e. on pure grades regardless if you’re at penn or florida state university, then it shouldn’t matter where you take your classes.</p>
<p>fair? maybe, maybe not.</p>
<p>the way things are? yes.</p>
<p>Also, the OP wasn’t asking about Penn vs. FSU, even though PR98’s response would still be valid. The OP is asking about CC’s.</p>
<p>i still say it’s unfair. i don’t think the talent level at a state school like fsu is much different than a CC. plus, a good portion of the students taking summer classes at a CC are probably students elsewhere anyway.</p>
<p>but in any case, i would say taking one pre-req at a CC is the most you would want to do, and really only if it’s necessary, like if your college schedule would be really packed and too difficult otherwise. if you get good grades in the rest of your science pre med classes at Berkeley, i don’t think it’ll matter- you will have proved multiple times that you can handle the difficulty of a 4 year university.</p>