Disadvantage in Community College

[AlfonsTheGuru]

Students usually transfer from community college to a 4-year university for their junior-senior year. I am simply worried that I won't be able to do research for my freshman-sophomore years. I have a GED, so there isn't another option for me. Do I have to take the bullet on this one or what?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Doug Underhill]

You can just cold-call PIs or buy a ticket to a conference and talk to them there to set up a research opportunity.

 

[LizzyM]

Students usually transfer from community college to a 4-year university for their junior-senior year. I am simply worried that I won't be able to do research for my freshman-sophomore years. I have a GED, so there isn't another option for me. Do I have to take the bullet on this one or what?

If there's already a thread for this, please link it and let this die.

Not sure why you think you have no option other than CC.

"If you have already completed your GED, then consider the fact that almost every college and university in the country accepts the GED in place of a standard high school diploma."
GED and College Admissions
by Howard and Matthew Greene
http://www.pbs.org/tenstepstocollege/GED.html



There are numerous summer programs that provide research opportunities:
https://www.training.nih.gov/programs/sip
http://www.pathwaystoscience.org/summerresearch.asp

 

[njtrimed]

Students usually transfer from community college to a 4-year university for their junior-senior year. I am simply worried that I won't be able to do research for my freshman-sophomore years. I have a GED, so there isn't another option for me. Do I have to take the bullet on this one or what?

If there's already a thread for this, please link it and let this die.

When I returned to school to pursue pre-med, I started at a community college. I was lucky that I had the opportunity to do research in the chemistry department there (they had an impressive lab with NMR, GC-mass spec, HPLC, etc.) but I know that's not the norm. I wouldn't worry if you can't do research, but you should be able to apply for REU programs as an undergraduate.

As long as you excel both at the CC level and at whatever four-year college you transfer to, you will be fine. I think it's important that you take upper-level science classes when you transfer, and success on the MCAT is probably slightly more important if you take a lot of pre-reqs at a CC. I have been pleasantly surprised that nobody has questioned my education during interviews; I think it's becoming more common and as long you maintain a 3.7+ GPA when you transfer, you're good to go. PM me if you have any questions.

 

[Mwooster]

Students usually transfer from community college to a 4-year university for their junior-senior year. I am simply worried that I won't be able to do research for my freshman-sophomore years. I have a GED, so there isn't another option for me. Do I have to take the bullet on this one or what?

If there's already a thread for this, please link it and let this die.

Is doing research nice if you like it? Yeah. Do people get into med schools without research? Yeah.

If you check out the survey of med schools published by AAMC, you'll see that only private (especially the top-20) schools place research as "medium importance." Most public med schools place research as "lowest importance." As long as you have good GPA and MCAT score, and you are dedicated to something or 2 you are passionate and actively involved in (that could very well be research), you're a strong applicant.

 

[AlfonsTheGuru]

Not sure why you think you have no option other than CC.

"If you have already completed your GED, then consider the fact that almost every college and university in the country accepts the GED in place of a standard high school diploma."
GED and College Admissions
by Howard and Matthew Greene
http://www.pbs.org/tenstepstocollege/GED.html



There are numerous summer programs that provide research opportunities:
https://www.training.nih.gov/programs/sip
http://www.pathwaystoscience.org/summerresearch.asp

I should've been a little bit more specific by what I meant. By "no choice" I meant I would rather save money in tuition and use a guaranteed transfer program for a university I am very interested in.

I also made the presumption that the majority of universities wouldn't accept an applicant without prior proof of academic success (high school), and mines is very limited. Am I wrong?

You can just cold-call PIs or buy a ticket to a conference and talk to them there to set up a research opportunity.

Thanks! I might try this.

When I returned to school to pursue pre-med, I started at a community college. I was lucky that I had the opportunity to do research in the chemistry department there (they had an impressive lab with NMR, GC-mass spec, HPLC, etc.) but I know that's not the norm. I wouldn't worry if you can't do research, but you should be able to apply for REU programs as an undergraduate.

As long as you excel both at the CC level and at whatever four-year college you transfer to, you will be fine. I think it's important that you take upper-level science classes when you transfer, and success on the MCAT is probably slightly more important if you take a lot of pre-reqs at a CC. I have been pleasantly surprised that nobody has questioned my education during interviews; I think it's becoming more common and as long you maintain a 3.7+ GPA when you transfer, you're good to go. PM me if you have any questions.

I'm glad to hear you were fortunate enough to have such an opportunity. Besides improving my application, research to me is a learning experience, that is beneficiary, especially in subjects I am interested in.

Is doing research nice if you like it? Yeah. Do people get into med schools without research? Yeah.

If you check out the survey of med schools published by AAMC, you'll see that only private (especially the top-20) schools place research as "medium importance." Most public med schools place research as "lowest importance." As long as you have good GPA and MCAT score, and you are dedicated to something or 2 you are passionate and actively involved in (that could very well be research), you're a strong applicant.

I'm aware research isn't some type of unwritten requirement. I believe I actually like research and wouldn't want to miss out on time I could spend on it.

 

[New_Slang]

I didn't do a lick of research and I've had a very successful app cycle, for what it's worth. Only 1 school even brought it up in the interview and I had an answer ready to address it, and then we moved on.

I'm not saying "Don't do any research, you'll be fine!" but there are so many other parts of your application that are also important, focus your energies on that and then let the research fall into place when you're done with CC.

 

[njtrimed]

Smart move to save money if you're supporting yourself and want to be able to borrow for med school too. I paid for the first year of CC out of pocket and once I maintained a 4.0 GPA, I got full tuition scholarships as an honors student all the way through. I supported myself almost entirely through jobs on campus, including research and working as a TA. I finished undergrad almost debt-free, which left me in a position to take out loans for all my expenses during med school.

Just a word of advice: be careful about balancing everything; I wish I knew then that I wasn't "expected" to be able to do everything other premeds were doing while working nearly full-time to support myself. I didn't get much sleep in undergrad and sometimes came uncomfortably close to dropping below an A average because I had so many balls in the air! (Edited to correct grammar).

 

[AlfonsTheGuru]

I didn't do a lick of research and I've had a very successful app cycle, for what it's worth. Only 1 school even brought it up in the interview and I had an answer ready to address it, and then we moved on.

I'm not saying "Don't do any research, you'll be fine!" but there are so many other parts of your application that are also important, focus your energies on that and then let the research fall into place when you're done with CC.

Glad to hear it! Why would you say you had a strong application?

Smart move to save money if you're supporting yourself and want to be able to borrow for med school too. I paid for the first year of CC out of pocket and once I maintained a 4.0 GPA, I got full tuition scholarships as an honors student all the way through. I supported myself almost entirely through jobs on campus, including research and working as a TA. Infinished undergrad almost debt-free, which left me in a position to take out loans for all my expenses during med school.

Just a word of advice: be careful about balancing everything; I wish I knew then that I wasn't "expected" to be able to do everything other premeds were doing while working nearly full-time to support myself. I didn't get much sleep in undergrad and sometimes came uncomfortably close to dropping below an A average because I had so many balls in the air!

I plan on doing the same actually working as a CMA and gaining clinical exposure at the same time. With that lack of sleep you must be ready for med school

 

[Mad Jack]

You're usually pretty useless from a research perspective that early on in your education anyway, and the sort of research experience you'd get wouldn't be all that fantastic on your app. Do the transfer as soon as you can, and consider taking either research credits or doing a research summer project between junior and senior year. Once you've got a foundation, you can actually do more challenging projects than running gels and cleaning beakers.

 

[New_Slang]

Glad to hear it! Why would you say you had a strong application?

I plan on doing the same actually working as a CMA and gaining clinical exposure at the same time. With that lack of sleep you must be ready for med school

I'm a non traditional student with a master's degree and related job that I held for a few years. I think my experiences with that was probably particularly attractive. Stats are average (LizzyM ~ 69 with new MCAT).

 

[CellPowerhouse]

Students usually transfer from community college to a 4-year university for their junior-senior year. I am simply worried that I won't be able to do research for my freshman-sophomore years. I have a GED, so there isn't another option for me. Do I have to take the bullet on this one or what?

Are you at a California CC? If so, you might be able to participate in the community college-specific research conferences they have. All the research I've done at my CC stemmed from research projects in class that I worked more on even after the semester - they weren't biomedical research projects (I did anthro and medical humanities) but I was able to do poster and oral presentations at conferences. PM me if you want more info/if this applies to you!

 

[AlfonsTheGuru]

You're usually pretty useless from a research perspective that early on in your education anyway, and the sort of research experience you'd get wouldn't be all that fantastic on your app. Do the transfer as soon as you can, and consider taking either research credits or doing a research summer project between junior and senior year. Once you've got a foundation, you can actually do more challenging projects than running gels and cleaning beakers.

Good point. Freshmen/sophomores can't do much :/

Are you at a California CC? If so, you might be able to participate in the community college-specific research conferences they have. All the research I've done at my CC stemmed from research projects in class that I worked more on even after the semester - they weren't biomedical research projects (I did anthro and medical humanities) but I was able to do poster and oral presentations at conferences. PM me if you want more info/if this applies to you!

Dang it, I plan on going to Virginia for college. Thanks anyways though!

 

[CellPowerhouse]

Good point. Freshmen/sophomores can't do much :/

Dang it, I plan on going to Virginia for college. Thanks anyways though!

Even so, check out if they have conferences there where you can present stuff from your research papers. Or, if you do end up doing a big research paper, you can submit an abstract to NCUR (http://www.cur.org/conferences_and_events/student_events/ncur/). I know a couple of people from my CC who did this (and a couple of psychology-specific conferences too, WPA comes to mind) and presented their work that were initially research papers in class, but they worked on more with their professor to be a full poster/oral presentation. Good luck!