Letters of Recommendation

[prettygreeneyes]

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Hi everyone! I am currently finishing up applications for PCO, ICO and Pacific and am in the process of hunting down letters of recommendation. I have the optometrist letters covered, but am having a difficult time coming up with academic letters. I attend the University of Nevada, Reno and each of my prereq classes has not had less than 100 people in it. I have done very well in each class, and never made the effort to get to know the professor very well because I understood the material or I made myself eventually understand it. I'm curious if anyone else has gone through the same thing, and what they did to overcome it. Thanks.

 

[odstudent]

Hi everyone! I am currently finishing up applications for PCO, ICO and Pacific and am in the process of hunting down letters of recommendation. I have the optometrist letters covered, but am having a difficult time coming up with academic letters. I attend the University of Nevada, Reno and each of my prereq classes has not had less than 100 people in it. I have done very well in each class, and never made the effort to get to know the professor very well because I understood the material or I made myself eventually understand it. I'm curious if anyone else has gone through the same thing, and what they did to overcome it. Thanks.

If you did really well in a lab and got to now your TA you can get them to write a letter for you and have the prof in charge of the lab co sign it. It was ok for the school i applied to, but you might want to double check to be sure its ok at the schools your interested in~

 

[Canadian26]

Yah ODstudent says is true.. I have the same problem, I dont know any of my profs that well, but some of my TA's I do know. I e-mailed ICO a couple days ago, and they said it was cool aslong as the prof co-signs... Im not sure if any profs would have a problem with doing that.

 

[RLK]

Just go to the prof and ask for a letter of recommendation. Tell him/her that you got an A in their class if that's what you got. I've had several profs write letters for me and none of them ever said they wouldn't write one. I think it's probably a pretty standard thing that they're used to doing.

 

[luvthemhogs]

I asked both of my advisors (pre-optometry advisor and biochemistry advisor) since they're like the only faculty I actually talk to. It just so happens my pre-op advisor also taught one of my classes. I e-mailed both of them and they both requested a resume and transcript. You don't have to be best buds or anything like that for them to write you a letter. They've written so many letters that I don't think writing them is a big deal, so don't sweat asking them.

 

[prettygreeneyes]

Great advice! I didn't even think about asking the TA for the letter and having the prof co-sign. I was lucky enough to get to know several TA's very well, so I'm going to ask some of them today. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with this problem. I went to my advisor a couple of weeks ago and she told me she could write me one, but "it wouldn't be a very good, detailed letter" because all she had to go on are my grades (GPA 3.7) and the short conversations we have had. Ever since then, I have been scared to ask anyone. I'm sure I'll get something now!

 

[Canadian26]

I didnt even think of just e-mailing my profs that I did well in classes for. I thought I would have to try this sem. and get "Close" with one or two lol... great advice thanks.

 

[RLK]

I wonder how if the schools even read these letters. We obviously wouldn't ask someone to write a letter that we think would give a bad recommendation. It almost comes down to which prof is a better writer. I think one reason the schools want these is to make it one more thing for the applicant to do...to get rid of applicants that aren't willing to do it and aren't really serious about the career. But what I do know...not much I guess or I would have been accepted last year haha.

 

[prettygreeneyes]

Hello all! I got some great advice when I started this thread, so now I'm hoping for some more. I'm applying to ICO, Pacific, PCO, and thinking about SCCO and UHCO. (Some of these schools require 3 letters, from natural science profs in CHEM, PHYS, BIO, and MATH). I contacted two different TA's for CHEM and PHYS to see if they would write me a letter and get it co-signed by the professor in charge of the class. They both agreed. I started looking a little closer at the emails we had exchanged, and I have come to realize that both gentlemen have HORRIBLE grammar. (Both TA's told our class that English was not their first language, and that they hoped we would bear with them when they wrote on the board or lectured.) I don't know how much their letters would help me, or if they would do more harm then good. I have also tried contacting a math prof, who has since moved out of town and left the math dept. with no contact information. I tried a BIO professor whose class I got an A in. She told me to find someone who knew me better. (That's all the natural science professors I've had, so I don't know what else to do!) Should I just send in my app w/o the letters, and take it from there? I have a 3.7 GPA and I can't get an academic letter of rec to save my life! What should I do?

 

[still_confused]

well to the TA's credit, some (like us) treat email as informal and do not bother writing in "english" one of the TA's had horrible grammer and english but i read one of her papers and it was flawless. i think for formal papers TAs do care about grammar and proper english. one of the letters i asked was from a lab mentor, and he doesnt even speak english (at least not comprehendable) but his writing is excellent and even though i never seen the letter he wrote for me, i have no qualms about using his letter for every school...why? because he knew me and he knew where i came from and where i was going (we talked alot during the downtime of waiting for gels to run) and i feel that whatever he says will definetely be to my benefit

if those are your only possible recs, i say just go for it, i am sure the admission commttee will be understanding, after all its not how it looks or sounds but the message it gets across.

 

[prettygreeneyes]

well to the TA's credit, some (like us) treat email as informal and do not bother writing in "english" one of the TA's had horrible grammer and english but i read one of her papers and it was flawless. i think for formal papers TAs do care about grammar and proper english. one of the letters i asked was from a lab mentor, and he doesnt even speak english (at least not comprehendable) but his writing is excellent and even though i never seen the letter he wrote for me, i have no qualms about using his letter for every school...why? because he knew me and he knew where i came from and where i was going (we talked alot during the downtime of waiting for gels to run) and i feel that whatever he says will definetely be to my benefit

if those are your only possible recs, i say just go for it, i am sure the admission commttee will be understanding, after all its not how it looks or sounds but the message it gets across.

I agree that perhaps I should just use these letters... after all I can't get anything else! I was not just basing my opinion of their writing skills on their emails... it was also based on the handouts and lab manuals written by the TA's and given out in class. The emails just brought the issue to my attention. Some individuals do treat email as very informal communication, others do not. Thanks for your opinion. 🙂