4 Year college or Community College? Does it make a diff. for pre-reqs.?

[PAGuyana]

Does it matter where you earn your pre-reqs?

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[musashi]

I sure hope not. I'm taking most of my prereqs at my local university but because of scheduling and timeline will be taking a couple at a community college. I'm hoping that good grades is what admissions looks at. Then again I won't be applting to Harvard where it's considered in a negative fashion.

 

[Beau Geste]

This is a popular question that has been asked dozens of times on SDN. I'm sure if you do a search for "community college" you'll find many threads about it.

The consensus seems to be that most schools accept them, but you'll have to contact the ones you are interested in applying to to find out for sure. There are 3-4 who DO NOT accept them but most do.

Many have stories of getting in with CC credit for pre-reqs.

 

[LifetimeDoc]

I think the general rule of thumb is...

1. CC courses are acceptable if you transfer to a 4-year degree program after doing 2 years at a CC.
2. CC courses taken while in a 4-year degree program at a University are frowned upon, and some places may figure you took the CC courses to avoid similarly "harder" versions of the same class at your 4-year program. Basically, if you are at a university, take the rest of your course there and don't jump around to a CC.
3. If you are a post-bacc and you already attended a 4-year degree program, going back to a CC program to do prereqs or to boost your GPA is frowned upon. Goto another university instead of a CC.

In the end, it's up to what each particular medical school wants. In general, they will favor identical applicant's GPAs to those that went to what they cosider a more "challenging" and "competetive school" (4 year programs vs. CC)

 

[NonTradMed]

I think the general rule of thumb is...

1. CC courses are acceptable if you transfer to a 4-year degree program after doing 2 years at a CC.
2. CC courses taken while in a 4-year degree program at a University are frowned upon, and some places may figure you took the CC courses to avoid similarly "harder" versions of the same class at your 4-year program. Basically, if you are at a university, take the rest of your course there and don't jump around to a CC.
3. If you are a post-bacc and you already attended a 4-year degree program, going back to a CC program to do prereqs or to boost your GPA is frowned upon. Goto another university instead of a CC.

In the end, it's up to what each particular medical school wants. In general, they will favor identical applicant's GPAs to those that went to what they cosider a more "challenging" and "competetive school" (4 year programs vs. CC)

Pretty much summed it up. Doing CC for financial/personal/nonacademic reasons is ok but if the adcoms see you doing it while at a four year college or you jump to a CC after a four year program, they may not like that. Also, if all you do is do your prereqs at a CC and do not have any coursework at a four year school (aka, upper level science classes), I have been told that is a hit against you as well. Other factors will also be taken into affect of course. You can do everything at the local CC, ace your MCAT and schools will come calling regardless (except for the top ones and the ones who won't take CC credits for any reason).

 

[relentless11]

The application game is ultimately the applicant trying to sell something to their customer...the adcoms. The problem is, from the adcoms perspective, theres is more supply (lots of similar applicants in terms of GPA/MCAT) than demand, so these adcoms want the best bang for their buck.

We can all agree, like it or not, that there is a stigma associated with community college coursework. I too am a transfer student, thus I agree with the Megboo, LifetimeDoc, and NonTradmed. However, I have always been a supporter of going the most rigorous route for post-bacc. But since this is about pre-reqs, I think it should be OK, aslong as it is supported by good grades in upper division coursework such as biochemistry or genetics (some schools require this anyway).

I understand that time and costs are reasons which drive people to seek the CC route, but it really comes down to how much you want to put into making your application solid. Leave no room for any disgruntled adcom to go "oh they sought the easy way". Remember adcoms are humans too, and come with their own set of biases, and discriminations as well. The key is to sell yourself, and leave minimal room for rejection based on things that are under your control....such as where you go to school, GPA, and MCAT score.

 

[Coclean]

What are the schools whic do not accept any CC credits that you know of?

 

[RxnMan]

If you live in a major city, look at the urban colleges in the area. Frequently, because they're located in a major city, these schools will offer night classes. These offer the best of both worlds: scheduling that allows full-time employment and enrollment in a 4-year university. The location makes it so that you can take the classes on the way home from work. As a fringe benefit, these classes are usually populated by professionals going back to school, just like you.

 

[Beau Geste]

Eh... whatever.

I have a Master's Degree plus many, many hours from a Ph.D. program. Throw in published research, 300-level university teaching experience, practicing as a therapist in another country and owning my own therapy practice currently, I'm not too worried about where I did my freshman/sophomore-level bio, chem, physics, and orgo. If my grades are great (and they are), I don't think the adcoms will worry that much either. Sure, I could be wrong since I haven't applied yet, but it's not something I lose sleep over. I'm more concerned with how I will do on the MCAT, which will be a bigger factor than where I did my pre-reqs for the schools I want to attend. I don't think other post-bacc-ers should worry that much either.

 

[LifetimeDoc]

Remember, adcoms aren't interested in anything other than whether they think you can make it through 4 years of medical school and pass the boards. From what I've heard, graduate-level coursework doesn't make up for low undergrad grades as, paradoxically, they think that high grades in graduate school are the norm and not representative of competition with other students.

Post-bacc undergraduate work grades are much more important, and as mentioned the MCAT to show your national-level competitiveness.

 

[relentless11]

Remember, adcoms aren't interested in anything other than whether they think you can make it through 4 years of medical school and pass the boards. From what I've heard, graduate-level coursework doesn't make up for low undergrad grades as, paradoxically, they think that high grades in graduate school are the norm and not representative of competition with other students.

Post-bacc undergraduate work grades are much more important, and as mentioned the MCAT to show your national-level competitiveness.

Graduate school grades can't make up for undergrad grades because they are counted seperately by AMCAS. DO schools combine both. Be careful with your wording. Graduate level courses CAN actually make up for low undergrad grades. Case in point, students who do well in SMPs. True, they take med school level courses, BUT, as defined by AMCAS, these courses still fall under the graduate level classification. So it really all depends on ones situation.

Lastly, I wouldn't call the MCAT's purpose as to show ones national-level competativeness. You certainly can derive that from your score based on your percentile. Really, you can rank everyone by GPA and still get a percentile of where you rank up among the thousands of applicants. For whatever its worth, MCAT is probably more of a way to standardize the courses you took (e.g., OChem, GChem, Bio, Physics). There is so much variability among undergrad courses at different schools that its hard to say if one A was easier to get than another A. Additionally, a good MCAT score shows correlation with how well you do on USMLE Step I.

Ultimately, despite all the arm waving about undergrad GPA and MCAT being very important (and they are), but in the end, most schools look at the whole application. I'm sure ScottishChap, or some of the other non-trads can say that grad school grades and GPA can play a pivotal role in getting into med school. But nobody can really make a definative assertion to that, since there are SO many variables involved. I would tend to agree with ScottishChap, but at the very least, having a good grad GPA still helps. To what extent, I can't say.

 

[LifetimeDoc]

Graduate school grades can't make up for undergrad grades because they are counted seperately by AMCAS. DO schools combine both. Be careful with your wording. Graduate level courses CAN actually make up for low undergrad grades. Case in point, students who do well in SMPs. True, they take med school level courses, BUT, as defined by AMCAS, these courses still fall under the graduate level classification. So it really all depends on ones situation.

Correct, but adcoms on SDN have said that undergrad grades are looked at more than graduate school grades because they reflect more competition between your peers (i.e. harder to get that "prized" A) and they require you to learn lots and lots of information compared to a very focused graduate course. It's not that graduate grades are worthless, it's that they aren't looked at as much as undergraduate grades. This is just what I have heard from reading adcom posts on SDN.

Lastly, I wouldn't call the MCAT's purpose as to show ones national-level competativeness. You certainly can derive that from your score based on your percentile. Really, you can rank everyone by GPA and still get a percentile of where you rank up among the thousands of applicants. For whatever its worth, MCAT is probably more of a way to standardize the courses you took (e.g., OChem, GChem, Bio, Physics). There is so much variability among undergrad courses at different schools that its hard to say if one A was easier to get than another A. Additionally, a good MCAT score shows correlation with how well you do on USMLE Step I.

Ultimately, despite all the arm waving about undergrad GPA and MCAT being very important (and they are), but in the end, most schools look at the whole application. I'm sure ScottishChap, or some of the other non-trads can say that grad school grades and GPA can play a pivotal role in getting into med school. But nobody can really make a definative assertion to that, since there are SO many variables involved. I would tend to agree with ScottishChap, but at the very least, having a good grad GPA still helps. To what extent, I can't say.

Yes; schools do look at the whole application. But with such a large pool of students with high GPA and high MCAT scores, they can't help but select those with good "whole applications" that also have high GPA and MCAT scores. It's just inevitable. Frankly, I think they way they do it is (and this is just my opinion)...

1. Get 3000 applications
2. Apply some low cutoff to GPA and MCAT, say 3.3 and 24 and apply state residency to the mix. This narrows it down to 1500 applications
3. Send out Secondaries and collect $$$. This'll cut down the applications to say 1300. (Or just send out the secondaries to all 3500 so you get more $$$ and then apply the cutoffs)
4. Use $$$ to pay staff or get students to glance over primary/secondy and look at the GPA/MCAT more closely. Randomly and non-scientifically score applications based on various criteria, the phase of the moon, pick some older people, minorities, people who tap dance, people who play some instrument, etc. Doesn't really matter as there are so many qualified applications that can get through medical school, you'll end up with plenty of good ones to interview.
5. Send 500 interview invites to the highest ranking applications
6. Interview 400 people, throwing out the 50 people who didn't know anything about medicine, 50 people who didn't click with their interviewer, 50 people who don't interview well, and the 50 people who where just arrogant asses.
7. Send out acceptances to the best 100, and put the remaining 100 on wait lists.
8. Greet the 75 people who made it through the process and had you as their top pick out of the acceptances they got.

The best you can do is to make sure you make it past the GPA/MCAT cutoffs, have those scores as high as you can, and have as many courses from 4-year institutions as possible (especially prereq classes). Then you have to be different and more interesting than the rest of the other candidates. Hopefully you'll also show the adcoms why you want to be a physician, your compassion, and your drive as you go through the process.

 

[relentless11]

Correct, but adcoms on SDN have said that undergrad grades are looked at more than graduate school grades because they reflect more competition between your peers (i.e. harder to get that "prized" A) and they require you to learn lots and lots of information compared to a very focused graduate course. It's not that graduate grades are worthless, it's that they aren't looked at as much as undergraduate grades. This is just what I have heard from reading adcom posts on SDN.

The context of their statement were graduate courses in general (e.g., standard PhD, and MS/MA courses). If the person did the SMP Georgetown, despite these being counted in the graduate GPA, they are for the most part, treated differently. Recommend you also look at what people say about SMPs. Additionally, it depends on the schools, and their policies. As much as we value the adcoms that post on these forums, they represent a very very small handful of what is out there. In fact, my school, UC Davis has recently adopted a policy to reward those with graduate GPAs of 3.8 and above. Therefore they do have an advantage over undergrads. The reason being, there has been a greater trend towards integrating medicine into biological sciences (see Howard Hughes Medical Institute Programs) to generate more physician scientists. UCLA, our sister school, encourages their reapplicants to do post-bacc and/or graduate program (see their FAQ). On the other hand, University of Washington states that they will deal with graduate courses/GPA on a case-by-case basis. They weigh only the 2nd to 4th year of undergrad, however DO NOT, weigh the 5th year (super senior) or any post-bacc.

Yes; schools do look at the whole application. But with such a large pool of students with high GPA and high MCAT scores, they can't help but select those with good "whole applications" that also have high GPA and MCAT scores. It's just inevitable. Frankly, I think they way they do it is (and this is just my opinion)...

Actually that will vary among schools too. Those that screen such as UC San Francisco for the most part do it this way:

1) Computer screens out those who have less than a 3.2 and MCAT of 24, personal statements are read by reviewers. (~3000-5000 people)

2) Those that are past the cut-offs get a secondary, those that do not can go into two piles: (a) rejection, (b) manual sorting pile. The applications that go to the manual sorting pile are reviewed for any other details that may not be represented by the undergrad GPA. Usually what flags a person into a manual sort pile would be their personal statement, etc. Obviously this will include graduate GPA. (~1500-2000 people)

3) Secondaries are screened, letters of rec are read. Reviewers identify those they want to interview (~500).

4) After the interview, the people you interviewed with meets with the admissions comittee. If they like you, the people you interviewed with try to convince the other committee members to grant you admission. This will be based on the whole application. In the end they'll let in ~200-220 people or so.

The WEIGHT for each of these steps, based on my PI who did the MSTP at UCSF and a MSII who was serving on the adcom is as follows. My PI describes GPA and MCAT being only worth a combined 16% (1/6th), personal statement is another 16% (1/6th), letters of recommendation is 33% (1/3rd), and interviews 33% (1/3rd). In terms of GPA, there is some small amount of bias towards prestigous schools. The MSII states that if a person got a 3.5 from UC Berkeley, then they would value that more than a 3.5 from a less reputable institution. This is representative of the "gist" of how they do it over here in CA. If you read additional threads, the cut-off is the major GPA hurdle. Beyond that, the graduate GPA actually helps more and more. Those that have matriculated with PhD degrees have reported adcoms saying that they can care less about their undergrad work which was done ages ago, the PhD work was more representative of their current state of academic performance. The take home message is, its highly variable as to how each school does it in terms of how they deal with PhD and MS programs. In fact this whole list of things doesn't even address how the schools handle SMPs. The mainly reason that the UC's don't talk about SMPs is the fact that we don't have any. Again, I suggest reading about the success rates at say the Georgetown SMP, and the various other prestigous programs. No better way to show ones ability to do well in med school than to have a 4.0 GPA while taking the full med school curriculum. If you can't get into or find an SMP, then post-bacc is the next best thing since it affects undergrad GPA. Here I must concede that doing a MA/MS or PhD may not be ideal unless you have a special program ...which is possible too.