Pre-Reqs at a Community College when a University adviser recommends it?

[Aerin Sol]

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I know that iterations of this question have been asked multiple times, but I think that I have special circumstances (or maybe I am just deluded, heh).

The community college in my city is very closely affiliated with the local University, to the point that the cc has a full-time adviser just for helping people transfer to the University and many of my cc professors also teach at the University. I was speaking to a different adviser for the University and he recommended that I take my basic science courses at the cc because they offer classes of ~20 people and the University classes are lectures with 200-300. Should I follow his advice? I am currently thinking of doing something like taking Biology 101 at the cc and Chemistry 101 at the University to evaluate any differences. If the cc is significantly easier then having taken just one pre-req at the cc shouldn't hurt, and if not then I'll be able to use the smaller class size to my advantage for several of the pre-reqs. Is this a good idea or should I just take all of the science pre-reqs at the U level?

 

[aggie08]

I know that iterations of this question have been asked multiple times, but I think that I have special circumstances (or maybe I am just deluded, heh).

The community college in my city is very closely affiliated with the local University, to the point that the cc has a full-time adviser just for helping people transfer to the University and many of my cc professors also teach at the University. I was speaking to a different adviser for the University and he recommended that I take my basic science courses at the cc because they offer classes of ~20 people and the University classes are lectures with 200-300. Should I follow his advice? I am currently thinking of doing something like taking Biology 101 at the cc and Chemistry at the University to evaluate any differences. If the cc is significantly easier then having taken just one pre-req at the cc shouldn't hurt, and if not then I'll be able to use the smaller class size to my advantage for several of the pre-reqs. Is this a stupid idea?

I would not take all or most of your pre-reqs at a community college, but some are fine. I don't think you would bring up a red flag with adcoms unless you did more than....2 or 3? I don't know, it would start to seem to me like you couldn't do well at a big university if you had more than 2 pre-reqs at a CC.

No matter how affiliated your CC is with the university, schools will not know or care about this. It is still going to look like you shy away from harder classes. Quite honestly, the smaller class sizes at a CC are not that much more advantageous if you utilize TAs, study groups, professor office hours, etc.

The exception to this, I think, would be if you did your entire first 2 years at a CC and then transferred. That's a different situation.

 

[bigbad]

Is it only recommended to not take pre-reqs at a cc?

What about major requirements like math or language or some arts crap? Would that still look like you were trying to take the easy way out (math for instance)?