lab instructor ok for rec letter?

[jimjones]

Some schools (eg Tulane) want 3 letters from professors. My uni had very large classes and its been tough for me to find more than 2 profs who know me well enough to write a letter. What do you guys think of having a lab instructor writing the third?

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[rxfudd]

If that's the only letter you can get, I guess it's doable - doable in the sense that it will be accepted as an official letter of recommendation. I'm not sure how much your application will actually benefit from it, though.

 

[Sir William Osler]

here's my opinion, but take it with a tad of salt. There are two schools of reasoning for this question. 1. profs have had experience with years and years of students. since they've seen so many, they should be able to accurately predict how you "stack up" to the group per se. A TA is a young grad student usually. no experience teaching. probably less objective. not really someone who can attest to your potential. 2. you want to find someone who knows you and can write a personal letter that supports your candidacy. so, the reasoning is you should ask a TA who knows you well over some aloof professor who you never spoke to.

So, in my opinion i think TA recs aren't quite optimal quality. But, if you have two good recs from faculty who support your strengths and qualities, then i think adding a 3rd from someone who knows you very well personally may even be better than antoher prof who says "student x got grade y in my z class, s/he was very smart. blah blah" do you see my point. Recommendatiosn are to give adcomms the big picture of who you are. you need to be smart, nice, talented, good pesronality, etc etc. get your recs to touch all aspects of your life and paint this pic of you. so, i dont think a TA is necessarily bad. but, i'm just a premed. hehe. good luck peeps and stay sane in this process.

 

[Sm00th13]

Hey jimjones,

I'm a TA @ Hunter College, and when students come up to me to ask about writing their letter of recommendation, I would just tell them that getting a recommendation from a professor is a lot better than a TA's. And I'm NOT saying that TA's are the worst for letters, it's b/c it's EXPECTED (from the ad. committee) to get a letter from a professor as oppose to a TA. Some TA's probably teach more than a total of 30 students (depending on class and section), so they may have the same difficulty as regular professor in trying to know everybody. When I TA a class, I try the best I can to know each individual and see what are their interest, whether it's med school, grad school, or anything else in life. Some TA's just loath to teach, while others consider it a passion. So if you do have a letter of recommendation from a TA, you could have the TA cosign the letter with the professor whose in charge of the class itself. I personally wouldn't mind writing a letter of recommendation and having the letter signed also by the professor. And/Or have the TA set up a meeting with the three of you (i.e. you, the TA, and the professor).
That way you have the TA's opinion of you made aware to the professor. Hope this helps

 

[jimjones]

That's gold Jerry, GOLD

 

[trying2becomeMD]

I had the same question, only I got a letter from a field site coordinator/teaching associate for a cancer studies class. She WAS the instructor for the class, but since she was not a "professor."

I had two classes with her, and she knew me extremely well. When I asked for a letter, it didn't occur to me that she may not count as a science faculty.

I also went to a large university, so not having a quality letter was a major concern for me. I personally think that the classes I took with her are science classes (cancer studies, effect of homelessness on person's health) so I am going to submit them.

I just called GWU and was told that the letter will count towards science faculty even though she is a field site coordinator.

I strongly agree with posts above, that the quality letter from a TA will help much more than a mediocre one from a professor.

BTW, who counts as a "science faculty?" is it only the professors? And not teaching associates or any other instructors?

 

[Scooby Doo]

Trying2submit,

I had this same question about science faculty. Of the 7 or so schools I "accidently" sent my TA letter of rec in thinking it was a "science faculty", 3 of them would not accept it....so I had to send in a different letter. However, EVERY SCHOOL told me to send in more letters! So I ended up sending in extras to almost every school b/c they were like "oh, 3 letters? Send more..that's just a minimum"...schools that said this were Wash. U, mt. sinai, ohio state u, and a few others. So I just sent a few more in. So I guess on average most schools expect about 5 letters of rec.

 

[Asteras1]

If you attend a large university as I did, it is generally expected that some of your letters will come from TAs. Although it may seem that adcoms are these robotic entities that will automatically reject an applicant for having used an extra comma in a personal statement, they in fact review applicants in a realistic fashion. This could also mean that if you went to a rather small school with small class sizes then they may expect your letters to all be from professors. As long as not all of your letters are from TAs you will be fine. I'm sure that in four years even at a rather large university you could get to know at least one professor well enough for him or her to give you a quality rec.

If you are still worried about sending rec letters from TAs, a friend of mine got into Loyola med a couple years ago and he sent in 2 letters from TAs and one from a professor so don't worry too much about this. Just be sure the people recommending you can give quality recommendations regardless of position.

 

[trying2becomeMD]

ScoobyDoo,

Do you mind telling me which schools said "no" to the TA letter? I am applying to about 32 schools, so if I need to ask another science professor for a letter, I think I better do it NOW!!!!!

Anyway, does field site coordinator sound non faculty to you guys? My instructor said to either use that title or teaching associate... if you were me, which one would you use in order to bypass this requirement? If i had to substitute that letter with my other science prof letter, it is going to hurt me big time, because I volunteered at homeless/mobile clinic and the letter reflects that...

Actually, now that I have had some time to think about this issue, if the schools don't specifically say "professors" then by "faculty" member, I think Teaching associates will work.

What do you all think?