LOR letters need help ASAP plz

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hqt331

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So I spoke to my premed adviser today for the first time, and he scared the $hit out of me by saying there are many schools that only accept the premed prereqs + microbiology as their "Science" LORs. I was planning on using mostly neuroscience classes as my science letters. I am a junior.

I have a couple of options. 1) I can still just use the neuro letters. 2) I can take microbiology or other bio class right now for no reason other than to get a letter (but add/drop ends soon). 3) I can go back to my orgo 2 prof from last year, who might not even remember me.

The neuroscience classes are, IMO, hard science classes. Very little psychology discussions going on in class, mostly neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, and plain old biology of the nervous system are taught in these classes.

And my last question is: I'm doing research with a professor that investigates effects of drugs on rats' behavior. I am currently registered for his class, but it is technically a psychology class (behaviorism, which is almost a natural science IMO). If I took his class, could I use his letter as a science letter, a non-science letter or neither, just as my "research" letter?
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I think your advisor may not be entirely correct. I think what he meant say is that you should seek letters from several different science subjects, as opposed to using multiple neurobio letters since you seem to have many. I would suggest using best neurobio letter and then seek out two or more other letters from microbio, orgo, or chem classes. This should be sufficient to cover the required science letters since you usually only need no more than three. Just to be sure, double check the admission site for the schools that you are looking into or call them to ask how they define science letters as.

Taking your professor's class is a really good idea since he can write a more thorough letter covering your academic performance and research work. When classifying the letter, I would put it as non-science letter.
 
I take everything he says with a grain of salt, because I have heard him say some questionable things before. I would only be planning on using 2 neurobio letters. The problem with the orgo, chem, or bio classes is that I took them a year or more ago, and it's questionable whether some of the professors would remember me. I have not yet taken microbio, and I would have to change up my schedule in order to take it.
 
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this is mostly speculation, but I doubt that medical schools are totally anal about the exact field that a letter comes from.
 
It would be hard for me to believe that neuro couldn't count as a science. I think you should be fine. The psych letter could be your research letter or it could be a humanities letter depending on how you want to use it. It all depends on what the schools are looking for...you could call and ask if you are really worried, but again you should be OK. Hope that helps.
 
hqt331 said:
So I spoke to my premed adviser today for the first time, and he scared the $hit out of me by saying there are many schools that only accept the premed prereqs + microbiology as their "Science" LORs. I was planning on using mostly neuroscience classes as my science letters. I am a junior.

I have a couple of options. 1) I can still just use the neuro letters. 2) I can take microbiology or other bio class right now for no reason other than to get a letter (but add/drop ends soon). 3) I can go back to my orgo 2 prof from last year, who might not even remember me.

The neuroscience classes are, IMO, hard science classes. Very little psychology discussions going on in class, mostly neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, and plain old biology of the nervous system are taught in these classes.

And my last question is: I'm doing research with a professor that investigates effects of drugs on rats' behavior. I am currently registered for his class, but it is technically a psychology class (behaviorism, which is almost a natural science IMO). If I took his class, could I use his letter as a science letter, a non-science letter or neither, just as my "research" letter?
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1. Your neuroscience classes are definitely science. Any natural science class = "science" as far as LORs are concerned.

2. If the content of the psych. class is primarily natural science (and not social science as most psych. courses would be), it is a science LOR.
 
Cytotoxic said:
2. If the content of the psych. class is primarily natural science (and not social science as most psych. courses would be), it is a science LOR.
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Are you sure about this? Because I've asked some specific schools and they said they want a BCPM course as a science LOR.
 
skyblue2000 said:
Are you sure about this? Because I've asked some specific schools and they said they want a BCPM course as a science LOR.
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If you've contacted schools and asked about LORs from specific courses, go with what the schools tell you.

You designate which courses are BCPM on AMCAS. I included psych. courses (Psychopharmacology, Animal Behavior, etc.) and it was fine.
 
Cytotoxic said:
If you've contacted schools and asked about LORs from specific courses, go with what the schools tell you.
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I've attempted to do this, but only one of the schools replied, and they told me to ask my premed adviser. I was like wtf, you're the admissions office, why can't you tell me?
 
hqt331 said:
I've attempted to do this, but only one of the schools replied, and they told me to ask my premed adviser. I was like wtf, you're the admissions office, why can't you tell me?
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In that case, use your own judgement (and I bet your premed advisor would tell you something similar). If a course is taught by the psych. department, but most of what you cover is the biology of behavior (or something similar), it's a natural science course = science LOR.
 
Another question: my school offers a class the examines the existence of God based on a mathematical perspective. Would this count as a non-science course?
 
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hqt331 said:
Another question: my school offers a class the examines the existence of God based on a mathematical perspective. Would this count as a non-science course?
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I would assume so. I doubt you would be doing any real math.
 
I would use BCPM classes for your science letters. I think any psych classes (that are designated as psych on your transcript), regardless of what they entail, are calculated as AO rather than BCPM on AMCAS.
 
Would a course in psychological measurements be considered BCPM (We had to even create our own measure and how we would test it's realibility,validity, etc.)??
 
WashMe said:
I would use BCPM classes for your science letters. I think any psych classes (that are designated as psych on your transcript), regardless of what they entail, are calculated as AO rather than BCPM on AMCAS.
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This isn't true. You assign course designations on AMCAS based on course content, not course title or department. E.g. many of the psych. department courses I took focused on the genetics and molecular biology of behavior. It would be absurd to call them AO.
 
skyblue2000 said:
Would a course in psychological measurements be considered BCPM (We had to even create our own measure and how we would test it's realibility,validity, etc.)??
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Doesn't sound like it (not natural science).
 
Cytotoxic said:
This isn't true. You assign course designations on AMCAS based on course content, not course title or department. E.g. many of the psych. department courses I took focused on the genetics and molecular biology of behavior. It would be absurd to call them AO.
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Based on this, could you use a social science course or philosophy course to fulfill the english pre-req??
 
hqt331 said:
The course description claims we use statistical methods and game theory.
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I guess it would depend on how central that math is to the class. If the class is more philosophy than math, it's AO. If it's more math than philosophy, it's BCPM.
 
skyblue2000 said:
Based on this, could you use a social science course or philosophy course to fulfill the english pre-req??
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Maybe. In my case, yes. I fulfilled part of the english requirement with a history of science and tech. course that involved primarily reading and analyzing utopian/dystopian novels, i.e. a lit. class. But in a case like that, always ask med schools if they'll take it. Just be very explicit about what the course actually entails.
 
This is tricky, you need to make sure that your neuroscience classes fall under the biology department. If its a psych department class, it count as a social science. I think as long as the class would factor into your science GPA, you are OK. Many classes at my school was classified as a "science class" but according to AMCAS, only bio, chem, math, and physics counted as science classes so stats offered under bio would have counted, but stats offered under psychology would not count.

In reply to the last post, I think the non science classes are assigned based content, but the science ones are more strict and is assigned more so on department. although most schools may accept a neuroscience class as a credit to biology major.
 
Infinitydrop said:
This is tricky, you need to make sure that your neuroscience classes fall under the biology department. If its a psych department class, it count as a social science. I think as long as the class would factor into your science GPA, you are OK. Many classes at my school was classified as a "science class" but according to AMCAS, only bio, chem, math, and physics counted as science classes so stats offered under bio would have counted, but stats offered under psychology would not count.

In reply to the last post, I think the non science classes are assigned based content, but the science ones are more strict and is assigned more so on department. although most schools may accept a neuroscience class as a credit to biology major.
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cytotoxic, above, disagrees with this. i have never actually seen the AMCAS app. all the neuroscience classes at my school are offered through the psych department. content-wise, they are actually very similar to bio classes (e.g., one of my classes included things about cellular structure as a leadup to describing neuronal structure).

EDIT: This link includes neuroscience as part of BCPM. http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=6998786&postcount=1

More importantly, just to make sure, do all BCPM classes count as science classes for the purposes of LORs?
 
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Sorry, my last question on the subject. If I submit LORs in the following way: 2 neuroscience letters (for science), 1 psych letter (for non-science), 1 research letter, 1 shadowing letter, will this too psych/neuro heavy? Does this make me look too one-dimensional? Should I go for a humanities class for the non-science?
 
hqt331 said:
Sorry, my last question on the subject. If I submit LORs in the following way: 2 neuroscience letters (for science), 1 psych letter (for non-science), 1 research letter, 1 shadowing letter, will this too psych/neuro heavy? Does this make me look too one-dimensional? Should I go for a humanities class for the non-science?
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Not ideal, but as long as you a) meet all LOR requirements with b) strong LORs, you're fine.
 
So, a little update on my situation. I really like one of my classes, which is a sort of "philosophy of science" type class. It seems to be much more like a philosophy class (we read books and write book reports and have discussions and no textbook), but it has "physiological psychology" in its title, which makes it sound like a traditional neuro class, which it is not. I really want to take the class because it sounds like a lot more fun than any class I have taken, it counts toward my (science) major, and it is very small in class size. I am hoping to get a LOR from this class as a non-science class.

Should I take the risk that schools will accept this as a non-science class or should I take a more traditional humanities course instead? I am also worried that it will seem too similar to my other LORs, which will come from traditional neuro classes, which are nevertheless very different from this one.
 
Would environmental science classes (like hydrology, geology) be considered 'science' classes as well for the LORs?
 
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