If you’re planning on going to med school, don’t start at a CC. That’s a known “risk” factor for getting in. Any other school is fine, even those not in the Top 100-200. Students get into med school from all sorts of colleges if they have the MCAT, GPA, and ECs to do so. One med school dean told us (at a pre-med event) that they are teaching doctors for all aspects of society and want students from everywhere to help meet that goal. But they also want to see rigor and a “life.” CCs aren’t always as rigorous which is why they toss up a caution flag at many places. It’s not always a dealbreaker, but when overall med school acceptance is around 40% (60% of applicants don’t get in anywhere), do you really want any caution flags you don’t need? Each individual med school has an acceptance rate in the single digits or close to it.
I often post U Rochester’s Med School Profile. It’s a good source to see what med schools are looking for in successful applicants, including colleges they came from. You can google other years and see that the writing is a template. They look for the same things year in and year out. Be someone your future med school can write about. You can do all that and not pay top dollar for an undergrad degree. Roughly 5900 applications for just 711 interviews. That’s only a 12% chance of getting an interview and who knows how many of those 711 they accepted for their 105 slots. I’m sure other med schools are similar.
There’s nothing wrong with pretty much any school you choose for your undergrad degree, but there’s a lot of negative with high debt. Apply where you like. Choose keeping debt in mind when you see where you’ve been accepted and what the final financial offers are.