Community College vs University for Prereqs?

Nursing schools won't care if you take the prereqs at a university or a community college. Just make sure you take the correct ones and with labs if needed. Also, tuition at the community college will be significantly cheaper if you're taking cost into consideration. Difficulty of courses at CSUs and community colleges are pretty similar from my experience. You might also want to check ratemyprofessors.com to check to see which of the schools have the better professors.

Have fun and good luck.

I'm not sure if it's the same in California, but in North Carolina you have to be careful about taking prerequisite courses at another college. For instance, some people do all their prerequisite courses at the college I attend, don't get into our nursing program, and then start looking at other schools to transfer to. The only problem is that some programs accept all of our prerequisites, some accept a majority, some accept only two or three, and some accept none. You need to look into whether or not the colleges you want to go to will accept prerequisite coursework done at the community college. If they will accept them, and the credits will transfer, then do them at the community college (they will be cheaper, and it won't look any different than if you did them at the university). If they don't accept them, and the credits won't transfer, then you will probably have to do them at the university, or find a community college that the credits transfer from (which is more trouble than it's worth). I would say call the community college and the universities, and see if the credits will transfer before you do anything.

I would agree with the comments above, it will not make a difference when you apply to nursing schools so you might as well save the money and take your courses at a community college. There is no shame in that.

It depends on the program to which you are applying. Some universities will give extra "points" to those students who complete courses at the university to which you are applying. Others view community college and university courses as being equal.

That being said, for the most part, I found the university level science major courses as being more difficult (more in depth, seemingly greater abilities of the student population). Of course, this is just a generalization.

If I had to retake all my courses again at the university, my GPA would not have been as high as it is (after taking courses at the community college).

You save money when you take the courses at a community college. That is what the majority of students do. They then transfer to the university when it is time to complete their degree and transfer their community college credits. Most community colleges have articulation agreements with the local universities. This is what you should check on before enrolling anywhere.

Yep! www.assist.org will be your best friend. Also, check with an academic counselor at the university.