Help! Letters of rec at big public school

[sundaymorning7]

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Any advice would help! Lota of anxiety over getting LOR from professors...
I graduated UC Berkeley in the spring and want to apply for med school this June. I did not know I wanted to apply to medical school until late in undergrad, and to be honest, I was just lazy about getting to know my professors (being at a huge public school did not help), which I am now obviously regretting.
My o-chem GSI is a friend and will hopefully write me one and have it cosigned by the professor. I also am hoping my Spanish professor will write me one. Besides that, I had some GSIs who liked me and whose office hours I went to, but it has been a while now.
Does anyone have experience going to professors way after a course is over and asking for a rec? I'm thinking about just bringing a resume and my old work from the class, being honest about my somewhat desperate situation and asking if they would be willing to help me out. In this case, would it be best to go to an upper div class or to go to a huge lower division class where it was not expected that all students would know the professor (does anyone have experience going to some of the big bio/chem profs at Berkeley)? Or would it be best to go through some of these GSIs and pray they remember me?
I know I will have at least two very strong letters from extracurricular sources, but I know its good to have three from undergrad and at least two from science classes so I would like to have at least one more.

Thanks and happy holidays to all!

 

[bagelbird]

Hey there! I went to UCLA and decided after graduating that I wanted to go to medical school... so I was in the same situation, in that I had to go back and ask professors for letters. They had no idea who I was, but I was just honest about my situation and I brought my personal statement, resume, and unofficial transcript. I told them about how their class influenced my decision to apply to medical school.

I was really worried that I wouldn't get any interviews because my letters would be so weak, but it ended up working out fine. I'm sure the letters weren't nearly as good as if I had actually spent time with the professors and if they knew my personality, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Pretty sure professors get these requests all the time, so I wouldn't sweat it. I would email them first to let them know the situation, and then ask to speak more with them in office hours.

 

[1Q84]

I also went to Cal and had to go back to get letters of recs, except I may have been in worse shape than you b/c I was not a great student and didn't really know my profs.

I had an old LOR written by my immediate research supervisor who was a post-bac at the time. This year, I e-mailed the professor who headed the lab I worked in and explained how I am now applying to med schools, had a previous letter written by the supervisor, but now I've lost touch with him but would still like an update to my letter to help make my app stronger. I sent him my personal statement, transcripts and also some updated info/grades from my grad work, The prof kindly agreed and updated my letter for me.

I am thinking that at Cal, the profs get a lot of these kinds of request so they're used to it. You'll just need to grow a little thicker skin and ask. If you don't know the prof very well, the LOR may not be super strong, but the LORs will not make or break your app if all your other stats and ECs are adequate.

 

[sundaymorning7]

Thanks so much for the help guys, that is really encouraging to hear! Guess I just need to put that personal statement together now...