One more question that I thought of:
I do not have a committee letter. I know that the merits/benefits of having one have been discussed on here ad nauseum. My reason for lacking a committee letter is not because I was turned down for one due to a poor academic record (although I do have some bad grades from 8 years ago to make up for), but it is a direct result of the fact that I am a non-traditional applicant, more than 5 years removed from my bachelor's degree. I took no science pre-reqs at my B.A.-granting institution and so after inquiring with the premed committee at that school as to whether they would write me a letter, they promptly refused, saying that I hadn't taken any of the required courses for medical school at their institution. Additionally, I am unable to get a science pre-req from the place where I completed my post-bac, because it was an informal post-bac that I set up myself. I was technically in the biochemistry bachelor's degree program during the post-bac so that I could qualify for some federal loans, and because I hadn't completed even half of the credits required to graduate with that degree, I wasn't allowed to apply for one. Thedeadline for requesting one was back in February, anyway.
After perusing some of the various school websites today, I see that many of them say that they prefer a committee letter, but if one is unavailable, then two letters from science profs and one from a non-science prof will suffice.The wording is ambiguous -- yes, my committee letter is unavailable, but the two schools I have attended do issue them, I'm just ineligible. I do have my two science and one non-science letters, but I'm wondering how I should deal with this. Some schools make it easier for me, I guess. They say on their websites that if your school issues committee letters, and you cannot get one, then you should send them an explanation as to why you cannot get one. My question for this is does this mean that I should go school by school and send 30 or 40 e-mails after going complete to explain why I don't have a committee letter? I was thinking that I could just put a paragraph about it on each secondary application, but I don't know if that would be frowned upon. If it's correct to just send an individual e-mail to each school explaining the situation then I will do that.
Will this kill my app in and of itself?