where to take prereqs in NYC

[KaylaRuth]

Wondering if anyone who took their pre-reqs (chem, bio, physics, A&P) in NYC had any recommendation for where to take the courses.... and where to avoid. I'm currently in the post-bacc program at NYU and realizing that there are far cheaper and quite possibly easier ways to knock out these prerequisites.
I haven't been too impressed with my 600 person lecture classes of chemistry and biology and wanted to see if anyone out there had a positive experience at a different NYC school taking the courses. I'm currently researching CUNY Baruch and CUNY Hunter but wanted to see if anyone had first hand experience with these school, and others in NYC.

Thanks for any advice!

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[BrokenDancer]

Pretty much any CUNY will have the courses needed to satisfy pre-reqs, and you can kind of jump around them if what you want isn't being offered. I've heard bio courses at Hunter are much harder than at other CUNYs, but I don't know if that means you're getting a better education. I've also heard Medgar Evers is a bunch easier, but again, no idea. I guess it's more a matter of do you want to be potentially more prepared for PT school or do you want to increase your odds of getting an A so you have a better shot at admission.

Edit: registration already started and some classes have filled up, so if you're going to go the CUNY route, you might want to get a move on.

 

[sammypt]

Wondering if anyone who took their pre-reqs (chem, bio, physics, A&P) in NYC had any recommendation for where to take the courses.... and where to avoid. I'm currently in the post-bacc program at NYU and realizing that there are far cheaper and quite possibly easier ways to knock out these prerequisites.
I haven't been too impressed with my 600 person lecture classes of chemistry and biology and wanted to see if anyone out there had a positive experience at a different NYC school taking the courses. I'm currently researching CUNY Baruch and CUNY Hunter but wanted to see if anyone had first hand experience with these school, and others in NYC.

Thanks for any advice!

I graduated from Hunter and I really don't recommend taking Biology there. The professor who teaches the course doesn't care about his students and the exams are impossible. You should consider taking your sciences somewhere else, or at least just the Bio. Anatomy is good there.

 

[BrokenDancer]

I had a girl in my A&P 1 class from Hunter, she said it was impossibly hard and she was taking it with us so that she could get a decent grade, so maybe avoid Hunter for those too...

 

[KaylaRuth]

I graduated from Hunter and I really don't recommend taking Biology there. The professor who teaches the course doesn't care about his students and the exams are impossible. You should consider taking your sciences somewhere else, or at least just the Bio. Anatomy is good there.

good to know, I feel that's sadly true about NYU bio department as well or at least in the intro level science courses.

 

[StartingAt29]

Hey KaylaRuth. I'm in a similar spot as you were. Also finished my undergrad at NYU (in Marketing and Finance), and took basically no PT prereqs. I'm looking into applying to CUNY for the fall semester (and will most likely take a few courses this summer as a non-degree student as well).

It would be nice to get a good education and be around like-minded students, but my main priority is getting a very strong prereq GPA (as close to 4.0 as possible), since my undergrad GPA was pretty abysmal.

I'm really curious what you ended up doing and what your experience was. Thanks!

 

[Rudolph Mitchell]

Pretty much any CUNY school (4-year or 2-year). I'm currently taking them at Borough of Manhattan Community College (2-year CUNY) in TriBeCa. Cheap tuition and they meet the prereq requirements so you can't lose

 

[BKTrojan]

I took calculus and all of physics at baruch. it wasn't bad and decently priced for tuition.

 

[sammypt]

Hi, I graduated from Hunter College and took all my pre-reqs there. I never regretted it more. The only pre-req you should take there is Anatomy 1. Maria Perera was amazing. Not sure who is teaching the second half anymore so I can't recommend it. I ended up re-taking all of them at Queensborough Community College. I really recommend any community college. The student to teacher ratio is good and the professors actually care. Whatever school you decide on, check the rate my professor website. Good luck all!!

 

[montevik]

I'm about to graduate from Hunter and I don't usually like to complain, but everyone is right in saying Biology there was unusually hard. It is however very doable as long as you don't slack around and you get to know your lab TA's. I think it's more to weed out week undergraduate freshmen.

In defense of the Bio professors, they are very busy and that's what the enormous amount of TA's /staff is there for.

I'd say that all of the other science subjects are doable in terms of just being able to pick up the textbook and doing just fine in the class.

I would say don't avoid Hunter, but if it just too out of the way or you have to jump through too many hoops, don't worry about missing it.

 

[CalvinPT]

If you want an easy way out, take the prereq in a CUNY community college. If you want a 4 year institution to keep your options open (like non PT program that may prefer sciences from a 4 year college) I guess any CUNY would do. Probably better to do Hunter or Queens than Baruch. And yes, bio will make you miserable. Its the prime weed out course for pre-med in Hunter and and Queens. If you're switching out of NYU for the quality of class size, realize the quality of your experience depends on the professor; if the professor sucks you'll be miserable and you'll teach all the material to yourself (80% of the time this is the case in my queens college career) if the professor is great than even a class of 150 students won't be a problem. You need to be active to get into a good class.