LOR from a math teacher?

[Ellie Arroway]

The story goes that you should have 2 LOR's from science teachers. I'm doing postbacc work and at the University I'm at now, my science classes all have 300 people in them and I haven't been going to office hours because I haven't needed much extra help with the coursework (I need to find some reasons to wander in there soon).

Math used to be my weak spot and it's why I originally thought I couldn't do medicine. Last year, I was at a community college and I had my calc teacher write me an LOR for an internship application. He also handed me a copy of the letter. It's great and spends a couple paragraphs talking about how I helped another student a lot, to a point that she decided not to drop the class like she was going to. He also uses my work as an example of how the assignments should be done. It's a great letter, and I'd love to ask him to recycle it for my med school app. Would med schools think that was weird? Should I just get letters from biology & OChem teachers that I don't know very well? My biology teacher last term knew me because I was scoring higher than everyone else in the class, but I still didn't know her well and she stopped teaching the series after 1 term :/

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[deleted261193]

im not an expert or anything, but usually when they mean science, they mean "bcpm" where the m stands for math = so you should be good to go with a math LOR.

in general, LORs from people who know you better >>>>>>> LORs from people who don't

 

[scarshapedstar]

That's a very strong letter. Use it.

They already know what your biology grades are, after all.

 

[SellerAl]

The story goes that you should have 2 LOR's from science teachers. I'm doing postbacc work and at the University I'm at now, my science classes all have 300 people in them and I haven't been going to office hours because I haven't needed much extra help with the coursework (I need to find some reasons to wander in there soon).

Math used to be my weak spot and it's why I originally thought I couldn't do medicine. Last year, I was at a community college and I had my calc teacher write me an LOR for an internship application. He also handed me a copy of the letter. It's great and spends a couple paragraphs talking about how I helped another student a lot, to a point that she decided not to drop the class like she was going to. He also uses my work as an example of how the assignments should be done. It's a great letter, and I'd love to ask him to recycle it for my med school app. Would med schools think that was weird? Should I just get letters from biology & OChem teachers that I don't know very well? My biology teacher last term knew me because I was scoring higher than everyone else in the class, but I still didn't know her well and she stopped teaching the series after 1 term :/

SDN is awful for rec letter advice, theres so much mis information. The objective of a LOR is to be a testimonal about the content of your character. Thats why they stress having somebody who knows you! Your letter sounds perfect.

 

[dougfunnie]

He also handed me a copy of the letter.

Sounds like you won't be able to honestly waive your right to viewing this letter since you've already viewed it. Unfortunately, waiving your access is a big deal.

 

[Bojack Horseman]

Sounds like you won't be able to honestly waive your right to viewing this letter since you've already viewed it. Unfortunately, waiving your access is a big deal.

I believe you are just waiving your right to access the letter from the source that receives it. If the letter writer intends to show you what they wrote, that is their choice. I wouldn't stress over this detail.

 

[idontcaureuknow]

By waiving your right you are saying that you cannot demand to read the letter. Or at least that is how I understand it. I got a letter of rec from a math prof. who knows me very well. This prof. voluntarily showed me the letter even though I waived my right of access and I'm very happy to have this LOR for my application.

 

[lemonade123]

I don't believe a math LOR will count as one of the two required science ones. I had the same exact question, except for a statistics LOR, and called various schools asking whether this counted as "science" or not. All of them gave me a big fat NO and said the LORs had to be from hard science professors.

 

[tantacles]

I don't believe a math LOR will count as one of the two required science ones. I had the same exact question, except for a statistics LOR, and called various schools asking whether this counted as "science" or not. All of them gave me a big fat NO and said the LORs had to be from hard science professors.

Even if it ISN'T counted as BCPM, though, it's definitely a good letter to have in your application.

 

[lemonade123]

Even if it ISN'T counted as BCPM, though, it's definitely a good letter to have in your application.

Yup, definitely

 

[Ellie Arroway]

Thanks, all! I should probably get two science letters to be safe, but I also get worried about sending in too many letters. My school has a committee letter packet that bundles several letters into "one" letter, but I can't use it this year because I don't have enough credits at the school where I'm finishing my pre-reqs. Including a volunteer coordinator and a couple physicians, I'm going to be pushing about 8 letters, which sounds ridiculous.

I'm curious, for other people that have to send everything as individual letters, how many letters is too many? I know schools want letters from your "significant activities," so that plus the academic letters works out to a bare minimum of 6. So if 6 is the minimum and 10 is the maximum allowed by AMCAS, is 8 or 9 reasonable? Or stupid?

 

[lunt]

I've used one of my math profs for science LOR at some of the schools I applied to, and so far it has worked. It was a mid-level geometry class though, so perhaps a bit better seen than stats (although I personally see nothing wrong with stats).

Schools that mention a maximum number of letters usually set it to 5-6. I think you're sending too many.

 

[Ellie Arroway]

I was afraid of that...I really wish we could just let our transcripts speak for our academics to some extent. I've focused most of my energy on EC stuff outside of the college community, and so that's where all my strong letters will come from, and having 3-4 academic letters makes it so I have to choose between my strong letters so I can fit in the less-interesting ones.