Do med schools account for non-transferable units from community college?

[medicalchimp]

Hey everybody. I’m a transferring community college student now studying pre med at a university. I had a couple questions regarding community college and how it’s viewed by med schools.

1.) Do med schools account for non-transferable units? Some units at community college are “non-transferable” meaning they do not technically transfer as units to a 4-year university. Is this the same for medical school? Or do medical schools account for ALL - every single class ever taken?

2.) Do medical schools look down upon community college transfers? Are they viewed as less favorable as candidates who attended only university?

3.) I received an “F” in an extremely low level math class that is not transferable. Will this be viewed negatively, and also impact my med school GPA? Or since it is a low level, non transferable math class do they not account for it in calculating my GPA?

thank you everybody!

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[rdyotz]

You must submit transcripts for all credits you have taken - meaning CC transcript and your 4-year college transcript. They will see everything, including college classes taken during high school and credits earned for military service.

Some schools do look down on CC, but you can mitigate it by taking prereqs at a 4-year and doing exceptional. Universities are typically harder and admissions understand that.

You can overcome bad grades in early years by doing well later, but all grades affect your cumulative GPA, regardless of where it was taken or the level of the class.

 

[OchemOficionado]

All college classes will count in your GPA.

I’ve heard about this community college stigma and the things you can do to overcome it are to excel in your university courses and try to take most of your pre reqs there.

 

[aldol16]

It's all factored into your GPA. AMCAS will have you calculate a GPA for pre-college college classes, then each year of college. At least I think that's what they still do. Upward trend is good.

 

[deleted994889]

I believe the CC stigma mostly applies to science prereqs if you are a university student but choose to take it at the CC level. I think there is slack for those who take them before they transfer and possibly career changers. Our resident adcoms can confirm/deny this.

 

[ryeguy]

I don't understand this because a lot of 4 year institutions require that you complete many of what are also medical school pre-requisite courses at CC. I wouldn't have been able to transfer to my university without having completed the LD general bio, general chemistry, organic chemistry, physics at the CC. Once I did transfer to my university though I was able to take UD bio classes..

 

[ryeguy]

@gonnif I get that schools value seeing pre-med coursework completed at 4 years but the issue I'm posing is that for those that didn't start at 4 year institutions often have no choice. To get into 4 year university you need to complete those LD's at CC. What do you do then? You can't retake those credits, nor would it make much sense. I suspect this is more oriented towards 4-year students who voluntarily take coursework at CC while maintaining other courses at their university.

 

[OchemOficionado]

@gonnif I get that schools value seeing pre-med coursework completed at 4 years but the issue I'm posing is that for those that didn't start at 4 year institutions often have no choice. To get into 4 year university you need to complete those LD's at CC. What do you do then? You can't retake those credits, nor would it make much sense. I suspect this is more oriented towards 4-year students who voluntarily take coursework at CC while maintaining other courses at their university.

Make sure you do well in the upper division sciences courses at your Uni. Possibly take extra.

 

[themoonman2]

I have a weird story: I went to CC after high school and decided on pre-med right before transferring to a 4 year university as a psych major. After graduating from my undergrad, I went back to that CC to finish my science pre-requisites, because it was the only real affordable option and taking the increased coarse load of pre-recs plus normal major classes plus volunteering and research while at the university seemed like a bad choice. I am now graduating from med school in 2 weeks (early graduation) and have matched into a competitive surgical subspecialty that I will be starting in July.

In retrospect, I think going to a CC absolutely hurt my application to med schools. It obviously worked out, but I get the feeling it held me back from interviews and acceptances at other places. My memory of medical school interviews was that I was asked about the CC in every interview I attended. I was also asked about the CC multiple times during my residency interviews, which felt pretty embarrassing- most of the people in my specialty did not have anything similar to me. I have not sat in on any adcom meetings at my med school, but I would not be surprised if attending a CC is factored in, especially in light of what was posted above.

Regarding non-transferable units: my memory is that I had to put every class I had ever taken onto my med school application. Plus, when you send your official transcript, they're going to see it anyways if they double check your self-reported info.

It definitely sucks you failed a math class. I would expect it to be calculated into your science GPA and overall GPA regardless of if it was transferable or not. This doesn't mean you can't be accepted anywhere, but you should be prepared to address what happened with that class and you also should show through other classes you have remedied whatever led to that failure.