Do you have any quantifiable proof that this is the case, or are you simply parroting that line because people on SDN believe it?
Show me any med school besides the ones that blatantly do not accept CC credits that has specifically discriminated against CC students that have done comparably to university students in terms of grades (and have comparable MCAT scores). Show me anything more than anecdotal evidence ("my bro took CC classes and he said they were easy") and "he-said she-said" statements from pre-meds and know-nothing advisers.
Seriously, the notion that CCs are easy and thus med schools want CC students with all As has been beaten to death here, and yet I haven't seen any hardline statistics to back it up. I welcome anybody who can. Because you're all going into evidence-based professions. So provide some good evidence.
No, I don't have a quantifiable proof, and I don't even think it exists (i.e. I don't think anybody collected and analyzed the data regarding acceptance of CC students). Do you have any quantifiable proof to the contrary?
But, in any case, I can tell you that, besides the schools that flat out don't accept CC credits, there are schools that explicitly state that they don't recommend taking CC classes and schools that take CC credits with reservations (which is one of the reasons to take higher level science classes at a 4-year university) - just check out individual school's requirements web pages. On top of that, there are schools that don't say it out loud but still discriminate against CC classes. Now, even some top MD schools accept CC credits, but it doesn't negate the fact that many schools discriminate against CC.
And no, I'm not parroting what people say on SDN. Or maybe I do - but only to the extent that I'm "parroting" something that faculty adcoms have said here (with a notable exception of goro, but I have already mentioned that DO schools are more lenient on CC credits than MD schools). Look, the truth is, adcoms take into account not only the difference between CC and 4-year colleges, but also the difference between different 4-year colleges - some schools are seen as more difficult than others, and therefore students who, say, have the same GPA but come from different schools are viewed differently. I mean, do you really think adcoms will see a GPA of 3.8 from MIT and a GPA of 3.8 from a CC equally? They won't even see MIT and whatever state university equally.
There is a lot of subjectivity, randomness and unfairness in the medical school application process. It's just the way it is. All we can do is try our best given the situation each of us is in. The good news is, even from my own experience I can tell that CC credits are viewed in the context of your whole application, i.e. at the schools that do accept CC credits they will probably not tank your application if everything else is solid (with my combination of a foreign undergrad degree, a US grad degree and CC credits to fulfill med school requirements while working full time - but also with a high MCAT score, a ton of high quality biomedical research and a lot of clinically relevant experience/volunteering/teaching/community outreach etc + an interesting life story and some interesting hobbies, I got 7 IIs from top 25 MD schools, including 2 Ivies). The bad news is, when push comes to shove, i.e. if there is a choice between an applicant with CC credits and an applicant who took all of his/her classes at a 4-year university with comparable accomplishments, I'm afraid, the choice is not going to be in favor of the applicant with CC credits (eg., in my case, while I'm ecstatic about interviewing at such great schools, I don't know if I'm going to get accepted anywhere at all because I'm interviewing with all the Ivy, Berkeley, Duke etc undergraduates who look down on my name tag). But this is just the way it is, whether we like it or not.
(and, by the way, before anyone accuses me of elitism, I applied widely, but didn't receive a single II from a "lower ranked" school)
