As someone with some experience in this arena, I would say that the best thing for you to do at the point where you are now is to talk to the pre-med advisor at your 4-year college. No matter how "mediocre" the school, what matters the most is what you do with it - if you show that you can go from "high school with a cigarette" community college to a four year college and pick up right away doing well on your coursework, that's what's important. I am a big advocate of non-"name brand" educations - since that's what mine was and I loved it and it prepared me really well for medical school, which I am in the first year of now, at MCV. The VA med schools know the VA colleges, and they know that a 3.8 means slightly different things at different places, but the going from community college to four year college is an added level of experience/maturity that might just make you more desireable in the long run. Go wherever makes sense for you, just be prepared to dicuss your motivations in the future, as you would for anything. Oh, and if you have to choose between CNU and ODU, I would pick ODU, even though it's not in Hampton Rhodes per se. There are a few people in my class from ODU, but none that I now of from CNU.
I have to say, as for UVa being the "best" of the med schools in VA, it just depends on what type of education you're looking for - by their own admission, UVa is more research oriented than MCV or EVMS, and again there's that whole "brand name" thing....just a rant from a VCU alumna.
As for talking to the deans of admission, usually they tend to offer more information in the form of meetings with people who have applied in the past and got wait listed, and are looking for what to do in the mean time to improve. They sometimes give forums for undergrads, but again at your stage using your premed advisor or some of the application couseling services (Kaplan offers some) might be more likely to help you.
Hope this helps. It helped me procrastinate from studying for anatomy.😀
