I had a miserably low undergraduate career at a liberal arts school with 0 science prerequisites . I will be taking all required courses post-bac. I know I am digging out of a hole and the rest of my application needs to be top-notch. Would taking my prerequisites at the local cc be detrimental to my chances of getting into med school? If I absolutely need to, I can attend a 4 year but am considering staying closer to home based solely on financial reasons. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.
I was in a similar situation back in 2011. Working full time, every penny counts. I can completely empathize with this predicament. My older sister is a doc and she would tell me about plenty of people that took their classes at a CC. These were either friends she knew from undergrad or people in her med school class. But these were all people that had stellar undergrad GPAs. So I didn't fall into that category whatsoever.
Ultimately, I went to a 4 year school for the prerequisites. I was asked to attend a Georgetown EM journal club meeting by my medical director to provide an EMS perspective on some of the articles they were discussing that month. There were like 40 docs there from the region, some residency directors, some fellowship directors etc. I was saying something like "I haven't decided if I will complete it at a 4 year school or CC" when I was interrupted by someone not involved in the discussion. He apologized, but said he couldn't help but overhear what we were discussing and felt that it was very important for me to know that I needed to take it at a 4 year school. I guess he was on the adcom there, or prior experience on it, because he told me they would be directly comparing me to students that almost exclusively take their courses at 4 year institutions. The words "I can't stress this enough to you" resonated with me.
Financially, I thought that was a tough pill to swallow... at first. In the long run, it may not. I have taken 48 hours at the local 4 year school, which is approximately 3 times the cost of the community college. I spent 18K instead of around 6K, not including books. But an in-state post-bac master's will cost me 40K, conservatively. I didn't want to risk saving 12K in the short run only to spend 40K later if the CC credits were not proof enough of my scholastic improvement. If I don't get into a med school and still need to complete a master's program then this was a terrible gamble on my part.
Two other things to consider:
1)Taking a course at a CC doesn't necessarily mean that it will be "easier" than taking it at a 4 year university, even if this is the perception of adcoms. Anecdotally, my friend was taking PA prereqs at the local community college at the same time as me. His organic chemistry class sounded like a nightmare compared to mine. Yes, that class is difficult wherever you take it. But I partly believe mine didn't seem so bad because my gen chem course was more challenging than his. I think this better prepared me for organic.
2)There are many more resources, outside of the actual classes, offered by a 4 year university. I am not saying they are nonexistent at a CC, just more prevalent at a 4 year school. I was able to take advantage of AED, listservs, and premed advisers.
Lastly, you may perceive the classes to be much easier this time than your previous academic experience. I worked anywhere from 56-72 hours per week while taking 7-9 credits per semester and still found that school was easier. There were many reasons for this, but I believe the most significant factors were due to possessing a greater drive and maturity. My short-sighted, 18-22 year-old self disappoints me sometimes when looking back through these 29 year-old eyes.
