FAQs

Yes. AP credits do transfer to CCU, and they are a great way of completing some college prerequisites in order to free up your schedule for elective credits.

However, if you are applying to graduate school, medical school, or another post-graduate program, the admissions requirements that those schools might have are courses that students must take at a four-year college. For example, if you are applying to medical school, medical school requires a semester of Calculus I. The four credits you earn for Calculus I must be earned at a four-year college. In other words, a Calculus AB course which you passed may transfer to CCU, but it will not count towards your course requirements for medical school. That means that if you took the AP Calculus AB exam, it will count as a CCU elective, but you will still need to take Calculus I at CCU in order to fulfill your medical school admissions requirements.

We recommend that you take as many AP credits as you enjoy taking in high school. They will prepare you better for college. You may choose not to pay for and take the AP exam in courses that your post-graduation plans require that you take at a four year college.

AP classes allow you to complete many of your non-major general education classes before you begin your collegiate career. For example, you may take AP English composition and AP English Literature to complete your freshman English requirements before you enter college.

Yes. We have qualified students that enter medical school each year. Achieving acceptance to medical school is a serious commitment in terms of time, grades, volunteer work, internships, etc. Many students enter college with the idea that they may want to go to medical school. At the end of four years, some of them change their minds for a variety of reasons. Some find that they simply did not like chemistry, or perhaps physics, well enough to complete the pre-med track at CCU. Others find other interests, such as working in our research lab in biology, or going into education, perhaps going to Physician’s Assistant school or nursing school, while some switch majors and end up in business.

It is our job in the School of Engineering and Natural Sciences at CCU to help you discover all the career options that are available to biology or life-science majors: public health, animal health, food safety, ecology, pharmacology, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals are just a few of the many options for life-science majors.

The student with a competitive GPA, a competitive score on the MCAT, a resume of requisite volunteer and internship experiences, and the correct transcripted course sequence has a great chance of being accepted to medical school. CCU faculty work hard to keep ourselves abreast of the latest changes to the MCAT and to the medical school admissions requirements so we can best guide you and equip you to become a competitive candidate for medical school if that is the path you choose to pursue. Our pre-med majors are designed to accommodate all the requirements you need to meet to take the MCAT in your junior year.

Yes! Some of our most successful alumni were varsity athletes. Athletes do keep busy schedules, but they also tend to be disciplined students, who know how to manage their time and get their work done, precisely because their schedules are so full. One of the most important indicators to your success in college is your ability to learn to manage your time and all the demands on your time well. Most athletes learn this trait already in high school. In addition, we offer multiple sections of our labs, and we offer both afternoon and evening labs, precisely to accommodate our student athlete population.

You would be in good company. The average college student changes majors two to four times before graduating. Going to college is not just about getting a degree, it is also about figuring out what degree you would like to get. We expose you to a variety of career options that you may never have heard about before, so it would only be natural if you make a switch or two before you graduate. That being said, we do try to help you graduate in four years even if you have switched majors. Your first two years at CCU will involve many general education class requirements, and those will fulfill degree requirements regardless of your major, so chances are, you would still be able to graduate in four years, even if you switched majors. If you switch into business or education, knowledge of science is so foundational and helpful that your science credits will still be an asset to your education.

There are a myriad of things you can do with your biology major if you decide not to go to medical school. Biology majors can work in public health, in high school science classes, in laboratories, in patent law, and in food services, just to mention a few. You may also consider nursing, optometry, prosthetics, or physical therapy. STEM majors (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) are some of the most sought after majors that graduate from college.