Will taking a first semester course or courses of a pre-medical track at a community college required to satisfy the program (say Chem I) be critiqued harshly by medical schools?
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This used to be true but has changed significantly in recent years. JHU was one of the major schools that did not accept community college classes but have changed their policy to accept CC classes. OP, some schools may ask you why you chose to take classes at a CC instead of a 4 year university and may have a preference. Your best bet is to buy a copy of MSAR to find out which schools accept/have reservations about CC classes and make your decisions based on that information.
This is debated a lot at SDN. The community seems pretty divided on it actually. What I've surmised is that it depends on your ability to explain your reasoning and what evidence you have to back it up. For example, if you take Bio 1 at a CC and claim you did so for something like financial reasons, but you have a low Bio score on the MCAT and you did poorly in your advanced Bio classes then it doesn't look good for you. In this example, it looks like you were a poor biology student and simply wanted an easy A. If however, you scored high in your MCAT bio and have all A's in your advanced bio courses, it seems likely that your CC Bio 1 won't be given a second thought.
I agree with esob but using this logic is also a way to evaluate the grades of any school. If you have all A's in your core science pre-reqs and low MCAT score, one could argue that you school had significant grade inflation. The point is, you will be evaluated both on the grades of your science classes and your MCAT score. You may have some degree of extra scrutiny with CC from some individuals on adcoms but the reality is there is a huge degree of variability with grading. Do your best to earn high grades and prepare for the MCAT. You should be ok. (full disclosure, I started my post-bac classes at a CC for gen chem and bio and am switching to a 4 year for upper division classes)
I never had a single person from any of the medical schools I interviewed at say anything about my community college which is how I started my college career and also where I did my post-bacc after graduated. There are people who were accepted to medical school where their science pre-reqs were at a CC and never took anything more advanced. Is it the best idea? Probably not, but it is not going to hold you back.
Some do, some don't. Invest in MSAR Online
Okay, great. Thank you all a lot! I'm going to take a good look at MSAR tomorrow. I am transferring next fall and wanted an early jump on Bio and Chem, but I think it might be in my best interest to just wait until I transfer to satisfy those pre-medicine needs. I am still going to take at least Bio and maybe Chem pre-reqs at my community college to refresh my memory since it's been a while. Thanks for the info, you guys are awesome 🙂
