N-School Prereq Advice Please!

[jhabvala]

Hi There,

My girlfriend is working on completing her prereqs in order to go to a nurse practitioner program. She holds a B.A. in anthropology from Smith College with a B+ average, but has little previous experience with science classes.

She is currently taking Gen Chem, Bio, and labs for both at UC-Berkeley's extension campus (for nontraditional learners). It is a particularly expensive program.

She is extremely concerned about her ability to afford the classes, and about her performance generally, but especially in gen chem. Doing some calculations, we figured out that she would need to get at least a B+ or A- on everything else in order to get a B- average (80%), and she figures the prospects for that aren't particularly good.

She is considering transferring to local community college to finish out the prereqs (which also include anatomy and nutrition) -- this would be a cheaper option, obviously, and also offers more scheduling flexibility.

Our questions are:

1. Does it 'look bad' to have your prereq coursework done at a community college?

2. How bad would it be to have a C in chem? Could she explain that by indicating that she hasn't taken science/math in a very, very long time? (since high school)

3. How bad would it be to have a 'W' (for withdrew) on her transcript?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

The community college movement was started back in a day for folks to do exactly that: take classes and transfer to a college or university, so it doesn't "look bad" when you're applying to a school to further your education - as long as it's an accredited school.

Whether a "C" looks bad or not is probably determined by the competetiveness of the program, so that's hard to say. If the school she's going to is hard to get into then a C is going to drag her down and she might need to consider taking it again.

I don't think a "W" or two makes a difference. People know that life happens and they have to withdraw. My community college experience has about six or more "W"'s and when I applied to BSN school and later grad school, it didn't seem to be an issue. (I never did go to grad school, but I was accepted.)