Are these "faculty" letters?

[tiedyeddog]

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Alright, I am sort of worried these are "faculty" letters. Please tell me if these are, in your individual opinions. Specifically, can I count these two letters are faculty who graded me?

1. A letter from my major advisor, who holds a masters. She graded me (pass/fail) when I TA'd a lab for credit (I paid to TA the class, got a passing grade.)

2. A guy who has two masters who is listed by his department as "adjunct faculty", he is working towards his PhD but is the only person teaching a class this quarter I am in. He is NOT a TA, he lectures and grades ALL my work. He told me as has the title of Adjunct Professor (aka is hired on a quarterly basis.)

 

[witness23]

#1 makes no sense to me so I'll comment on #2

at some schools (esp the schools w/ big graduate studies depts.), you really cannot help who teaches your class. I know that a lot of my lecturers are graduate/post-doctoral students. If they lectured your class, gave you a grade, and knows you well from an academic stand point, I think a letter from an adjunct faculty is fine.


someone can add/take away from my comment.

 

[Appless]

1) no
2) As long as that guy is truly a faculty teacher and not a grad school TA then its fine. If his official title is lecturer or professor you should be good to go. It sounds like hes still a TA though. I have plenty of classes like you described where the TA does all the grading and lecturing and the PHD prof just basically has the title of teaching the class even though he does no work at all or grading. If you wanted to try to use it go ahead but it seems like hes a TA to me.

 

[scattun]

Medical schools make you take pre-reqs for a grade, so I would assume when they say faculty that have graded you, it should be to the same standard of grading (i.e. not pass/fail). Also my understanding of "faculty" is tenure track instructors, which would exclude both of your recommenders. Based on these two "standards" I would say definitely no to the adviser and probably no to the double masters "adjunct." You may, however, want to use the adviser letter in addition to the required faculty letters if she truly supervised your TA experience.

 

[tiedyeddog]

at some schools (esp the schools w/ big graduate studies depts.), you really cannot help who teaches your class. .

Yeah, this is exactly the problem I have run into. I have had TWO quarters in a row where I have not been taught by a PhD, in fact, my other classes(5 of them...) are taught by people who are literally grad students and not deemed any sort of faculty by their departments....
Just hoping his "adjunct professor" title makes the difference...

 

[BlueElmo]

yeah I'm in a similar boat.

My non-science letter is from a grad student who is the Instructor for the class and he is the sole teacher of our 20-people class. He gives assignments, grades, leads the class, and is basically the sole instructor.

He should count as faculty letter, right?

sorry if I'm hijakcing your thread tiedy.

 

[tiedyeddog]

1)I have plenty of classes like you described where the TA does all the grading and lecturing and the PHD prof just basically has the title of teaching the class even though he does no work at all or grading. If you wanted to try to use it go ahead but it seems like hes a TA to me.

Yeah, I have had many of the classes you describe, too, mostly in my huge science classes. However, this class is super small (30ish people) and he is the only teacher associated with the class.

 

[witness23]

my non science letter was a visiting faculty I think. Its harder with humanities since they put their grad students through big teaching requirements. google a med school and see what they say about their reqs.


Different schools handle it differently. This is why I used my committee service, btw.

 

[tiedyeddog]

yeah I'm in a similar boat.

My non-science letter is from a grad student who is the Instructor for the class and he is the sole teacher of our 20-people class. He gives assignments, grades, leads the class, and is basically the sole instructor.

He should count as faculty letter, right?

sorry if I'm hijakcing your thread tiedy.

You're not hijacking, this is pretty much the same question I have. If there is no PhD or other faculty assigned, doesn't that mean it's good? I mean, the person should be able to tell how apt you are because they have dealt with many other students and graded them and yourself. Right?

 

[tiedyeddog]

my non science letter was a visiting faculty I think. Its harder with humanities since they put their grad students through big teaching requirements. google a med school and see what they say about their reqs.


Different schools handle it differently. This is why I used my committee service, btw.

We don't have a commitee service. 🙁

Yeah, #2 is a non-science. Pretty much all my non-sciences have been taught by graduate students (as in they are the sole instructor).

 

[BlueElmo]

You're not hijacking, this is pretty much the same question I have. If there is no PhD or other faculty assigned, doesn't that mean it's good? I mean, the person should be able to tell how apt you are because they have dealt with many other students and graded them and yourself. Right?

exactly. Just because he doesn't have a PhD shouldn't mean what he is saying is garbage.🙁

 

[BlueElmo]

so if a non-science letter is from a grad student who was my sole teacher, led the class, assigned me a grade, etc, it should be legit?

 

[tiedyeddog]

so if a non-science letter is from a grad student who was my sole teacher, led the class, assigned me a grade, etc, it should be legit?

I think I am going to go ahead and use mine. I looked over the requirements for the schools I am applying to and they all just said something along the lines of "faculty who graded you".

I don't get why it matters. My dude made the syllabus, decided what books to assign, etc. So, I think that counts for a lot.

 

[scarletgirl777]

yeah I'm in a similar boat.

My non-science letter is from a grad student who is the Instructor for the class and he is the sole teacher of our 20-people class. He gives assignments, grades, leads the class, and is basically the sole instructor.

He should count as faculty letter, right?

sorry if I'm hijakcing your thread tiedy.

I think that's not worth sweating about for the non-science letters because for a lot of schools, the "non-science" letter can be from a doctor, work supervisor, research mentor etc.

 

[scarletgirl777]

my non science letter was a visiting faculty I think. Its harder with humanities since they put their grad students through big teaching requirements. google a med school and see what they say about their reqs.


Different schools handle it differently. This is why I used my committee service, btw.

An excellent point. With the committee service, all those nitpicky rules don't matter.

And for the record, I think #2 is fine. In some colleges you don't even need a PhD to be a faculty member, so I think the title is more important than the degree the person holds or may or may not be pursuing.

 

[Compass]

I'd say #1 would barely squeek by, for a few reasons, even though he's not a student:

As a TA, your job is to teach students. You must have mastered the material. Assuming the professor actually observed you teaching and made sure you didn't tell your students that the earth was flat, I'd like to say that, while it's not a traditional professor/student relationship, it nevertheless shows your mastery of your subject and relationship with a professor.

 

[witness23]

so no one else is confused that they have a class that the OP had to pay to TA kids?

 

[tiedyeddog]

so no one else is confused that they have a class that the OP had to pay to TA kids?

Wha'? It counted as credit for my major classes. My advisor coordinates the laboratory section of a class. The class is a low level introductory that pre-vets and nursing majors take, a lower level class than what I took for an introductory to my major. I paid for the credit hours (like you pay for normal credit hours/classes...)

I was just trying to say that it was indeed a class, not volunteering or for payment. She was at every lab period. Normally she would lecture for about thirty minutes then the students would start doing experiments. I would help people with scopes, show them how to stain, answer questions about the material, yadda yadda. She would also be there floating around if they needed her. I graded some quizzes, gave a presentation, proctored quizzes, blah blah.

Sorry, just want to be clear.