Starting at a California CC...any tips/pointers?

[gibson777]

I have ended up at the local CC because of financial and some personal reasons. Also had some problems with financial aid. Anyways, I am in the Honors Program and have priority registration through my time here so I will not have a problem getting out in time. Has anyone gone through this with the transfer and ultimately admission to medical school? Is there anything I should do in particular to not be at a disadvantage? I am aiming for a UC or possibly Northwestern, I haven't looked into many other schools that would be trasnfer friendly. Any help is appreciated!

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[La Presse]

I have ended up at the local CC because of financial and some personal reasons. Also had some problems with financial aid. Anyways, I am in the Honors Program and have priority registration through my time here so I will not have a problem getting out in time. Has anyone gone through this with the transfer and ultimately admission to medical school? Is there anything I should do in particular to not be at a disadvantage? I am aiming for a UC or possibly Northwestern, I haven't looked into many other schools that would be trasnfer friendly. Any help is appreciated!

Make sure all your classes transfer. Look at the equivalency charts for schools

People often advise to not take pre-reqs at a community college, but at a university. in my experience, they are very similar. Take it how you want. if you must take pre-reqs at a CC, only take some. I took some general education classes including bio and chem. I am now taking physics and ochem at a uni...

Start preparing to transfer a semester early. I did not get to go to my top choice because of this.

 

[Neurophage]

I have ended up at the local CC because of financial and some personal reasons. Also had some problems with financial aid. Anyways, I am in the Honors Program and have priority registration through my time here so I will not have a problem getting out in time. Has anyone gone through this with the transfer and ultimately admission to medical school? Is there anything I should do in particular to not be at a disadvantage? I am aiming for a UC or possibly Northwestern, I haven't looked into many other schools that would be trasnfer friendly. Any help is appreciated!

Some California community colleges have transfer agreements with UCs such that you are guaranteed admission as long as you complete certain courses and maintain a certain GPA. Definitely look into that!

I'd recommend that you double check everything your advisers tell you with the UCs, and make sure you're taking rigorous courses so you won't be trying to catch up when you transfer. If you are choosing between different CCs in your area, try to find out which ones are more respected by med schools.

 

[gibson777]

Yeah, already ran into a problem. Apparently Berkeley doesn't take AP Calc AB credit and I was going to enroll in Calc II but caught the problem and am in Calc I now. There is a site (assist.org I think) that has the school requirements for the UCs and I am following that. Northwestern seems a bit vague and not too tough on requirements, Berkeley on the other hand has very rigid and encompassing requirements.

I really want to get some Pre Reqs out of the way because I am not majoring in a science so I was hoping not to be overloaded with PreReq classes when my Junior year comes around.

 

[obgyny]

I have ended up at the local CC because of financial and some personal reasons. Also had some problems with financial aid. Anyways, I am in the Honors Program and have priority registration through my time here so I will not have a problem getting out in time. Has anyone gone through this with the transfer and ultimately admission to medical school? Is there anything I should do in particular to not be at a disadvantage? I am aiming for a UC or possibly Northwestern, I haven't looked into many other schools that would be trasnfer friendly. Any help is appreciated!

This website will be your best friend if you want to transfer to a UC: http://www.assist.org/web-assist/welcome.html

Definitely plan out your classes well ahead of time to make sure you can fulfill the requirements for your planned major at the UCs you want to attend (the UCs require transfer students to apply to a specific major). Double check you're on the right track with assist.org rather than relying on an academic counselor. Also some of the UC's have guaranteed admission for CC transfers if you meet certain requirements.

I went to an out-of-state CC, then transferred to a CA CC, then transferred to a UC, and now I'm attending a CA med school. You're going to have to take a lot of the med school pre-reqs at a CC in order to transfer into any kind of UC bio major (if that's what you want to major in), so there's not much getting around that. Because of this, I took all my pre-reqs while in CC except for ochem. Obviously things turned out just fine for me .

Especially if you rock your upper-division bio/sci classes at your university and maintain a good GPA throughout, you'll be fine.

 

[Medidactic]

Yeah, already ran into a problem. Apparently Berkeley doesn't take AP Calc AB credit and I was going to enroll in Calc II but caught the problem and am in Calc I now. There is a site (assist.org I think) that has the school requirements for the UCs and I am following that. Northwestern seems a bit vague and not too tough on requirements, Berkeley on the other hand has very rigid and encompassing requirements.

I really want to get some Pre Reqs out of the way because I am not majoring in a science so I was hoping not to be overloaded with PreReq classes when my Junior year comes around.

If you are going to do some prerequisites at CC, try to have a high GPA and when you do transfer, try to maintain that high GPA when you take upper-division courses. Good luck!

 

[nabilesmail]

I went to a CCC (actually like 7 since it was hard to get classes, but still transferred in 2 years)

Got into UCSD/UCLA/BERKELEY/USC and chose USC

Things to do:

Complete IGETC
Complete all prerequisites (if your a bio major that pretty much means all premed requirements except physics)
Get a 3.7++ (shouldn't be too hard, just stay on top- choose an easy community college lol, I had 5 in the area and chose one (though I didn't know it was the easiest)- classes were much easier compared to the others- College of the Canyons!

Complete TAP if you want to go to UCLA- it is almost guaranteed admission

GET INVOLVED IN EXTRACURRICULARS NOWWW!!!!

My mistake was not involving myself- that meant I had to cram all the unofficial requirements into 1 year at my University. Do clinical volunteering and shadowing whilst in CCC- do research once at your university, if you can get research earlier, the better. Join PTK after the first semester and get an officer position- not too hard

Be involved!!!!

 

[Neurophage]

My mistake was not involving myself- that meant I had to cram all the unofficial requirements into 1 year at my University. Do clinical volunteering and shadowing whilst in CCC- do research once at your university, if you can get research earlier, the better. Join PTK after the first semester and get an officer position- not too hard

This is excellent advice that I wish I'd received before starting down the path to med school.

 

[MaenadsDance]

Well, I just made the transfer from a CC to a CSU, and guess what? A quarter of what I'm expected to know for my Calc II course wasn't covered at the community college five miles down the road! I could tell that the Calc I course I took was pretty easy, but it's disappointing to be in a position where I have to learn a whole bunch of new material in what's supposed to be the review week.

So, yes - make sure that what you're taking transfers, and make sure that any pre-reqs you take at CC are actually PREPARING you for upper-division coursework. If you're hoping to transfer to Berkeley, listen to some of the lectures for Berkeley's General Bio sequence, to see if what you're covering in class matches to what they're covering in class.

Second, always register as soon as possible. No brainer, but there it is.

Third, don't withdraw from classes if you can help it, they're limiting the number of times you can enroll in a class, and withdrawals count just as much as Fs and Ds now.

Fourth, study with the nontrads and older students, on average they work twice as hard as the fresh out of high school crowd.

 

[Ashley1989]

I would second the advice to stick with the non trads and PLAN OUT AND THEN STAY ON SCHEDULE WITH YOUR CLASSES TO TRANSFER. Use assist.org to help you make your plan, and I would personally take what their advisiors say with a grain of salt. Because the tuition at a CC is inexpensive compared to other schools amongst many other reasons, it's very easy to go to a CC and stay there for twice as long as you initially planned. This isn't always a bad thing, but you've been warned.

 

[Morsetlis]

Talk to your counselor.

 

[angemon89]

Follow assist, complete IGETC, and look into the transfer agreements.

When starting new, I feel like counselors try to to get you to take the remedial classes like pre-chemistry or trig. I just ignored them and never went back for class advice. Everything you need to know is on assist. The counselors were only good for signing my transfer agreement.

 

[gibson777]

I went to a CCC (actually like 7 since it was hard to get classes, but still transferred in 2 years)

Got into UCSD/UCLA/BERKELEY/USC and chose USC

Things to do:

Complete IGETC
Complete all prerequisites (if your a bio major that pretty much means all premed requirements except physics)
Get a 3.7++ (shouldn't be too hard, just stay on top- choose an easy community college lol, I had 5 in the area and chose one (though I didn't know it was the easiest)- classes were much easier compared to the others- College of the Canyons!

Complete TAP if you want to go to UCLA- it is almost guaranteed admission

GET INVOLVED IN EXTRACURRICULARS NOWWW!!!!

My mistake was not involving myself- that meant I had to cram all the unofficial requirements into 1 year at my University. Do clinical volunteering and shadowing whilst in CCC- do research once at your university, if you can get research earlier, the better. Join PTK after the first semester and get an officer position- not too hard

Be involved!!!!

Funny you say COC, that is where I am at

I have a counselor but he already messed up and luckily I caught it. I am following the assist.org printout, I am majoring in business but it looks like I will have some room next year to get some sciences in (at least Bio and Chem, maybe Physics). The UC Berkeley requirements are pretty big but at least they do cover some of the pre reqs.

Thanks for all the advice so far everyone.

EDIT: Just wrote everything down and didn't realize how extensive the Berkeley requirements are. I can cover the 7 course requirements, and the UCLA Bus requirements as well and knock out Chem I, Bio I, Physc I, Calc and English, but would have a semester left of Chem, Bio, and would have to do a whole year of Physics and Orgo. Ouch.....Is this too much to handle? Because realistically speaking I would drop Berkeley and focus on the UCLA requirements and that would open up room to finish the science classes. Thoughts?

 

[sinombre]

I went to a CA CC... just keep your GPA really high. I got into Berkeley, Davis, and UCLA without any problems. You're going to have to hit the ground running once you transfer though (in terms of networking and getting sufficient ECs). I actually think this gave me an advantage... I worked twice as hard as everyone once I transferred, but ended up with really awesome EC opportunities as a result.

 

[nabilesmail]

Funny you say COC, that is where I am at

I have a counselor but he already messed up and luckily I caught it. I am following the assist.org printout, I am majoring in business but it looks like I will have some room next year to get some sciences in (at least Bio and Chem, maybe Physics). The UC Berkeley requirements are pretty big but at least they do cover some of the pre reqs.

Thanks for all the advice so far everyone.

EDIT: Just wrote everything down and didn't realize how extensive the Berkeley requirements are. I can cover the 7 course requirements, and the UCLA Bus requirements as well and knock out Chem I, Bio I, Physc I, Calc and English, but would have a semester left of Chem, Bio, and would have to do a whole year of Physics and Orgo. Ouch.....Is this too much to handle? Because realistically speaking I would drop Berkeley and focus on the UCLA requirements and that would open up room to finish the science classes. Thoughts?

If you need any help on class choices/easy GE's let me know!

It is fine to be business, just make sure that your also only going to be at your university (post transfer) for two years as well.

Take Chari for Bio 106 (Gen Bio 1 )

 

[gibson777]

If you need any help on class choices/easy GE's let me know!

It is fine to be business, just make sure that your also only going to be at your university (post transfer) for two years as well.

Take Chari for Bio 106 (Gen Bio 1 )

Alright thanks! I plan on taking Bio next semester I may switch my major but I have interest in Business regardless and it is a good backup.
Also just realized the 7 course breadth doesn't need/required to be completed at CC Guess that opens up a lot of room.