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Tough call. You mentioned before that you had Veteran funding, in which case that's an easy call... go to the 4 year college. I guess if you crush the MCAT, they could convince themselves you're equal to anyone else who went to the 4 year school. But as you've seen with some folks , it's so competitive, there may be 10 other people like you who crush the MCAT but did the 4 year school. Plus, could you really crush the MCATs if you studied the sciences at the community colleges versus a big time 4 year school? Possible, but I'd say it's like the NFL drafting the receiver from Akron with a 4.3 40 instead of the OSU guy with the 4.6 40. Sure, it happens, but it's pretty rare, rare enough to be newsworthy.
On the plus side, you'd be unique as a polysci major with the military experience who did great in the sciences also, which is rare, and you'd be competing against a smaller pool. In my year, the majors who had the highest acceptance rate were English majors. I have never met a single one of them in real life; most people I know majored in one of the sciences, but again, if you can do great in English and still do great in the sciences, thats pretty unique, and you'd be competing against other English majors, if which there are few. I had a classmate at Northwestern who majored in music, piano performance specifically. She also killed all the premed classes, the MCATs, and was on the varsity tennis team. I studied with her a few times, and she was just a helluva a lot smarter than I was. It was very obvious. She went to NU medical school (chosen over me) and is now a cardiothoracic surgeon. But then she killed her sciences at Northwestern, alongside all the other science geeks.
So, I'd say yes, they could potentially hold it against you. When I speak to the medical students who rotate through with us, they're all unbelievably impressive. Great at everything, great grades and test scores, plus went to Africa to feed babies and volunteer in a medical community, blah blah blah. It makes you want to just strangle them. I did have one med student in the last few years who took a few years to get a Master's in a health science before getting in. But she was a minority student, and fair or not, there are fewer minorities to compete with. And that's another controversial topic that could be a whole thread unto itself.
You'd be unique because of your military experience and polysci major, as well. But again, you'd be leaving a bit of a hole in your education if you did the community college thing. Not a mortal wound, by any means, but it'd be a question mark for sure.
Yea, unfortunately, Post-9/11 GI Bill will cover you for four years or eight semesters. So using three semesters on undergrad stuff would leave me on the hook for three very expensive semesters of med school.
So, hmmm.