PLEASE HELP! SERIOUS PRE-MED CLASSES ADVISE NEEDED!

[Oolong Wa]

I am soon to enroll in a standard community college in the U.S.A. that, along with the traditional Fall, Spring, and Summer semesters, offers split Fall, Spring, and Summer semesters--Fall A, Fall B, Spring A, Spring B, and Summer A and B. This means I would be enabled, for example, to take Chemistry 1 and Physics 1 during Fall A, and Chemistry 2 and Physics 2 during Fall B. And so on in the following spilt semesters.

Do you see my taking pre-medical classes this way--Fall A and B, and so on--as being a problem? And what if I bulked O Chm 1 and Phy 1 into the A term and O Chm 2 and Phy 2 into the B term--the normal time frame of a standard semester? Would this be too rigorous for GPA success?

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[tjopling]

I would be very careful about taking more then one science class your first semester of college. College is different from high school. My advice: only take one class your first semester to get a feel for college classes. Plus you'll be able to concentrate on that class and do a good job. In later semester, if you can, you can sign up for more classes. But the Fall A and B thing sounds like you could easily only take one science class per mini semester.

<-DJ

 

[popoman]

sup...how about this????
you just forget about medicine...come on man..you are in community college. you prolly cant do algebra..you cant handle premed work.. even in a Community college..
just be a bum...

THe confused freshman...=P

 

[Paul's Boutique]

Prolly can't spel, eithr, Okie?

Popo----you shouldn't critique ANYONE. hehe

 

[bhoover]

HAHAHA Paul's right. However, I find popo' antics to be rather entertaining.

------------------
**To Know is to Understand**

 

[noah]

I 'm pretty sure that most med school only accept pre-reqs taken at 4-year schools and require semester-long classes or the equivalent (i.e. summer courses which cover a years or semesters worth of material). Doing otherwise may severely hurt your chances of admission. I would recommend looking for a 4-year university to take these classes and complete your degree.

 

[Lt. Ub]

Popoman,

What exactly are you confused about? I know you've given me a few ideas ideas. Being so vocal about how jaded you are will get you nowhere except under everyone's skin. Once you grow out of this phase (as most adolescents do, myself included), maybe things will begin to clear up for you. If this phase of your life continues, may the forces of Darwin prevent your cynical nature from being passed on.

I believe that your goal is not to help people change by making light of their queries, rather it is simply to annoy them. Am I right in claiming this? Ironically this is what will be your undoing. You are wasting your time attempting to bother the people on this website, because for the most part (and I will admit I am generalizing here) we have developed past the point of seriously considering what small people like you have to say. (I define "small people" as those who, with conscious effort, refuse to grow.) So I recommend looking down to those below you (if such people exist) and try spitting on them. Because you're trying to spit up to people here, and it's only landing back down on your own face. Good luck.

[This message has been edited by Lt. Ub (edited 06-02-2000).]

 

[noah]

well said......

 

[whynotme?]

Hear! Hear! Save the room on the post for someone who has something to say!

 

[Nanon]

Noah - actually, most schools will accept science classes from any accredited college, including community college. I've heard of exactly one school that won't, and I believe it's a private school, though I can't remember the name. I think it's a fifty-fifty split opinion as to whether this hurts your chances for admission, but it won't keep you out. I know this because I go to a community college, and advisors from UCSF and Stanford come to my school all the time. They tell us it's fine to go to a community college, but that it's better if we do really well in terms of GPA and MCAT.

As to spliting semesters - I agree, bad idea, don't go there. I looks weak on your application, and you haven't gotten your collegic feet wet. Some of these classes are really, really time consuming, even at a community college.

My .02

Nanon

 

[MikeS 78]

While I do not find Popoman's advice to be that useful, I agree with his overall gist. I have yet to hear of a community college class that prepared you adequately for the MCAT and all of my friends who thought they'd pad their premed resumes with community college are now planning alternatives to medicine

 

[fiatslug]

Consider me (I was accepted to several MD schools) a happy exception to your extensive personal experience with community college pre med coursework. We had students from UC Berkeley in my orgo class who thought they'd take an "easy" orgo class at a jc, and they had their a**es kicked. I agree that bias like yours certainly exists in the medical community, and to that extent, jc coursework may hurt you; I just think it's founded on ignorance and snobbery.




[This message has been edited by fiatslug (edited 06-02-2000).]

 

[Nanon]

There is, just as there is at 4 year institutions, a bell-curve of quality that exists at CC's. At my particular CC, most people who make it through the chemistry, ochem and bio do extraordinarily well on the MCAT. It is VERY difficult to make better than a C in any of those classes, at the attrition rate is just awful. Of the 250 people I started Chem 1 with, only 9 were left in the last class of ochem. As a consequence, most peoples ACS (American Chemistry Society) ochem tests are in the 80th percentile, and most people do better than 30 on the MCAT.

My tutor, who did all of her post-bac-pre-med work at my CC, got into EVERY SCHOOL SHE APPLIED TO, and is starting at UCSF this fall. And while she is the exception, I have yet to see anybody NOT get into med school their first time out from my school.

Mike - perhaps the reason your friends didn't get into med school from CC is because they didn't do well in the classes. Happens all the time at my school - to UC Berkeley students, at that.

Nanon

 

[ocean_doc]

About community colleges:

Some of the professors at various universities also teach at community colleges and keep the same standards of teaching. So, the quality of a class is not always a factor of where you take it, but who you take it with.