LOR question-- please help me :(

[wendywellesley]

i know these questions have been beaten to death but this is kind of quick-

i took all my intro classes (except physics) and orgo as an undergrad (i was a humanities major). i'm now in my second year out of college taking upper level undergrad bio classes and i have done really well. i have two letters of recommendation from profs i've had recently as a post-bacc (bio profs but in different biology deptartments), two letters from humanities profs from my undergrad years (one of those is from my major advisor) and one from my PI (i work in a lab). I was told by my medical admissions comittee that you need two letters from profs in the "the premedical sciences", would the ones I have now count? I don't have any letters from my undergrad science profs, mostly because i got all B-'s (one C ) and it's been about 4-5 years since i took these classes.

thanks for the help!!!
wendy

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[CarleneM]

while there may be a random school or two out there with that requirement, i did not have a letter from any premed science professor and i did not have any problem at all getting interviews (18 interviews in all). the only one who ever questioned it was my pre-med advisor and i assured her my psychopharm professor was "sciencey" enough, especially given that most of my letters were from md's. if this is a requirement of your school's premed committee, i would (politely) argue with them that it is not a requirement of the schools you are applying to and explain why it would not strengthen your app to have such a letter. besides, you have letters from bio professors. that should be enough. hopefully they'll be reasonable

i know these questions have been beaten to death but this is kind of quick-

i took all my intro classes (except physics) and orgo as an undergrad (i was a humanities major). i'm now in my second year out of college taking upper level undergrad bio classes and i have done really well. i have two letters of recommendation from profs i've had recently as a post-bacc (bio profs but in different biology deptartments), two letters from humanities profs from my undergrad years (one of those is from my major advisor) and one from my PI (i work in a lab). I was told by my medical admissions comittee that you need two letters from profs in the "the premedical sciences", would the ones I have now count? I don't have any letters from my undergrad science profs, mostly because i got all B-'s (one C ) and it's been about 4-5 years since i took these classes.

thanks for the help!!!
wendy

 

[wendywellesley]

while there may be a random school or two out there with that requirement, i did not have a letter from any premed science professor and i did not have any problem at all getting interviews (18 interviews in all). the only one who ever questioned it was my pre-med advisor and i assured her my psychopharm professor was "sciencey" enough, especially given that most of my letters were from md's. if this is a requirement of your school's premed committee, i would (politely) argue with them that it is not a requirement of the schools you are applying to and explain why it would not strengthen your app to have such a letter. besides, you have letters from bio professors. that should be enough. hopefully they'll be reasonable

thanks for the advice carlene! yeah, i'm mostly worried that my pre-med advisor will say something about it.

btw- your mdapplicant profile is absolutly amazing!!! you seem like a really cool person. good luck with med school

thanks again!

 

[CarleneM]

no problem and thanks for the kind words... yeah i think a lot of premed advisors/committees have pretty rigid criteria in their head of what needs to be done without really taking into considerations realities of the process. for example, my advisor was insistent on me applying to 20 schools but didn't provide any feedback on the schools i had chosen. just had to have that magic number. when i said "look i have 17" that wasn't good enough...ugh. anyway, i think you'll have a good balance of lor writers, including science profs so that should be great. good luck to you as well!

thanks for the advice carlene! yeah, i'm mostly worried that my pre-med advisor will say something about it.

btw- your mdapplicant profile is absolutly amazing!!! you seem like a really cool person. good luck with med school

thanks again!

 

[gujuDoc]

To my understanding it doesn't have to be someone from the core prereqs so much as it has to be any science professor. So it could be someone from a class like a higher bio class or higher science class. Or in some cases you can even use math professors as science professors.

Hope that helps.