Community college courses vs. 4 year university courses

[premedhelp1256]

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I plan on doing a postbacc in the fall, and I have started looking at courses at the local universities in my town. I have already completed a lot of the prereqs, so I had planned on taking some other upper level science courses as well as the others. I am stuck between two right now: the first only offers associates degrees in Biology, so while they do have courses like Biochemistry, genetics, and microbiology, they are listed as 200 level. These courses are about 100 per credit hour. The other is a private school, and offers these same courses but in the 300 and 400 level. These ones cost about 700 per credit hour.

I've always heard that after you graduate, it doesn't matter if you take prereqs at a 4 year university or a community college. Would the same thing be true for these courses? I'd like to save as much money as possible.

Thanks for reading! Appreciate it.

 

[thatwouldbeanarchy]

How were your grades in the prereqs you took during undergrad? CC is probably fine. It could be a red flag, if it appears to adcoms that you chose CC after doing poorly in 4-year university courses. (Which isn't to say that CC courses are always easier, but they are sometimes perceived that way.)

Overall, I think if you've already demonstrated that you can handle university coursework, it's probably fine to finish up your prereqs at CC. Save yourself the money.

 

[premedhelp1256]

I have an upward trend in my prereqs, mostly Bs and As. The course I'm actually going to take is a an intro Bio course, which would be a retake from a really bad semester. I graduated in 2015, so I wouldn't be able to take it at my home institution.

I think it'd be better to take it at the CC because of how much cheaper it is but I don't want people to think I'm trying to cope out.