Does going to a community college hurt your chances of getting into grad school?

JustAnotherGu

I am a freshman getting ready to finish my first semester at a community college, with a strong GPA , and I'm planning on transferring to a 4 year college after this next semester is done.

I've heard a lot of people online say that medical and graduate schools look down on people who start out at community colleges, and I was wondering if there was any truth to this, and if any of you have had experiences with this.

I already know that my GPA won't follow me when I go to the 4 year university, which is somewhat disappointing.

I've already finished most of my easy classes (calc 1, physics 1, history, english, etc) and my GPA is going to be based entirely around the much more difficult high-level classes, which is something that makes me really nervous.

Will graduate schools look at my application and be understanding of the fact that my GPA is based solely on high-level classes, and that I don't have the lower level ones to "pad" my GPA?

And while we're on the subject, what happens to physics majors who don't get into grad school? I've heard a lot of people say that undergraduate physics degrees are useless for everything except high school teaching, which is not something that I want to do.

If it ends up being true that being at a community college will severely limit my chances of getting a job later on, I might just switch to computer science. I had a hard time deciding between the two at first, so this might be the thing that finally tips the scale one way or the other.

Astronuc

The performance in the upper level grades, e.g., junior and senior years, will count more for graduate school. Hopefully one will achieve a demonstrable proficiency.

Highway

"I've heard a lot of people online say that medical and graduate schools look down on people who start out at community colleges, and I was wondering if there was any truth to this, and if any of you have had experiences with this."

this is complete ********, though med schools and grad schools do care about gpa, so make sure you keep your grades up no matter where you go to school

Choppy

This is untrue. When you apply to graduate school you are generally required to submit your transcripts for all post-secondary institutions you've attende. They will apply whatever formula they use to calculate your GPA. So even if you failed out of a history program before you figured out what you wanted to do with your life the people on the admissions committee are going to see that.

It doesn't work that way. If they factor in a four year cummulative GPA into their scoring system, they will look at where those marks came from. Maybe they will only factor in your last two years. It varies from school to school. What they won't do is compare four years from one student to two years from another.

They end up completely useless and have no hope whatsoever of getting a job that pays more than minimum wage. (/sarcasm)

Seriously, I would look up some of the AIP survey results as they tend to track such things so that physics students will have some data to make decisions on. A lot will depend on the particular skill set the student develops and his or her interests. Many will go into engineering, programming, IT, or education, but those aren't the only options. There are options like technical sales or consulting that you could get into right away, or with some additional training I've know some physics graduates who have gone into technical professions like radiation therapy or ultrasonographer. There are a lot of open doors, but don't get discouraged because none of them are particularly labelled 'Physics BSc Required.'