Many of our students were CC transfers. I can't recall this ever being discussed as a negative. If anything, it's evidence of resilience and adaptability.
Very true! I took CC classes while I was in high school but then transferred to the University when I went off to college. I agree that it depends on the classes. I personally only took Bio 1 and 2, and Chem 1 and 2 at the CC. Every other science was at the university.
This may be a recent change, but Baylor does accept community college credits.
The MSAR indicates that they do not accept CC units for inorganic Chemistry or biology. About half of the other common/required courses are considered on a case by case basis.
Post bac is okay if you are a legit post-bac who is changing careers. If it looks like you skated through undergrad without taking physics and/or ochem in your undergrad school although everything else in your application indicates that you have been pre-med all through school, then some adcoms might see through the strategy and consider you a weaker applicant than someone who did it all in undergrad.
I'm assuming this negativity only applies to the difficult pre-reqs? I took a psychology class online through a local CC during a summer to get some gen ed credits, but took every class in my major (eng) and all of my bio, chem, etc. through my 4-year university. Never considered that it could look like I'm padding my GPA - though one course wouldn't really make a difference anyway.
Oh ok, I only looked at Baylor's website when I applied. I didn't take inorganic chemistry and I did take biology at a CC but maybe they looked past it because I took upper level biology classes when I transferred. I haven't received an admissions decision from them but I assumed that they wouldn't have interviewed me if I hadn't met the requirements.
I wouldn't point it out to them if I were you!
Usually money. Some students go to CC's due to poor high school performance, but that's probably not the case for most students who end up making it all the way to a med school application. It's much cheaper, and thus the only option for many of us.
A significant number do it so save money, but I have seen many others who do it because it is an easier way to get into a UC school, especially when someone has "slacked off" in high school. Santa Monica College to UCLA is a perfect example. My boyfriend told me that when he was transferring from Purdue to the UC system, he was put in the back of the line behind all CC transfers. I thought that was crazy because he was coming from a respected 4-year institution. He just did not want to do aviation anymore and he was a California resident.
He was told that is how they do transfers. 2-year before 4-year. Don't know if there were exceptions, such as if you were transferring from Harvard. This was over a decade ago, so it might have changed by now. I did not have experience with transferring because I went straight in from high school, but I trust that he is not lying about what he was told.
If I had to speculate a reason for taking 2-years before 4-years, I'd guess that it's because preventing the transfer of a 2-year student stops that student's education dead in its tracks, while rejecting a 4-year student doesn't prevent further education of that student. Plus, CC's and UC's are both public, so it it makes sense for them to work together towards the overall success of their students before helping out students from private schools.
The UC system also seems to have an agreement with California CCs. Even though Purdue is not private, it is a public school in different state that California could probably care less about. It was just unfortunate for my boyfriend because he was a California resident. At least he ended up getting in, otherwise I would never have met him. He was the worst O-chem lab partner, though. 😀
http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/transfer/
