Need help regarding completion of pre-reqs

Ordinarily I would say that taking your pre-reqs at a CC after graduation would be a feasible plan; however, your D+ in biology may make it appear that you are trying to avoid taking your pre-reqs at a 4 year college because of your past poor performance. And rightly or wrongly, community college courses are viewed by adcomms as being less competitive than classes taken at a 4 year college. I think given your poor showing in bio, you really need to do your sciences at a 4 year college. (It doesn’t need to be another UC. If there’s a CSU near your home, that will be fine.)

Also some of your med school pre-reqs will not be available at a CC–specifically biochem.

Realistically, for allopathic medical schools you need a sGPA above 3.6.

A 3.2 sGPA + MCAT >500 might get you accepted to a SMP**.

If you can get your sGPA up to 3.4+, you’ll be in-range for osteopathic medical schools outside of CA–particularly some of the newer schools. (CA DO programs have stats equivalent or higher than national MD medians.)

If you want a MD, you’ll need to do a SMP**.

**SMP = Special Master’s Program. These are high risk-high reward 1-2 year graduate programs that simulate the work load and difficulty of the first year of med school. The best are offered by med schools and come with a guaranteed admission interview for the top performing students.

The downside of the SMPS are:

  1. they’re expensive
  2. if you don’t finish in the top 25% of the class, any chance of every getting a med school admission are gone.