LORs for those who have been out of school for a few years

[jaa91107]

Hi all, I am a first time applicant to DO school and plan on applying later this year.

I graduated from college with a BS degree in 2008. After graduation I landed a job at UCLA Medical Center, which is still my current place of employment. My question is, how do I get LORs from science professors who taught me if I have been out of school for almost 5 years? I did not keep in touch with my professors so I seriously doubt they would remember me.
I'm hoping some of you could give me a little feedback and hopefully some of you have been in the same situation I'm in.
Thanks

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[marinehrnt]

Hi all, I am a first time applicant to DO school and plan on applying later this year.

I graduated from college with a BS degree in 2008. After graduation I landed a job at UCLA Medical Center, which is still my current place of employment. My question is, how do I get LORs from science professors who taught me if I have been out of school for almost 5 years? I did not keep in touch with my professors so I seriously doubt they would remember me.
I'm hoping some of you could give me a little feedback and hopefully some of you have been in the same situation I'm in.
Thanks

I was in the same situation although some of my science classes dated all the way back to 2003. It really depends on the school but I found that some of them would allow students that had been out of school for more then two years to substitute a letter from a work supervisor. My boss wrote me a letter and I also went back and took an o-chem class to refresh my brain and was able to get a letter from the professor as well. I ended up with a letter from my boss, o-chem teacher and one from a DO that I shadowed. It's definitely tougher when you have been out of school for awhile but not impossible.

 

[MedPR]

Hi all, I am a first time applicant to DO school and plan on applying later this year.

I graduated from college with a BS degree in 2008. After graduation I landed a job at UCLA Medical Center, which is still my current place of employment. My question is, how do I get LORs from science professors who taught me if I have been out of school for almost 5 years? I did not keep in touch with my professors so I seriously doubt they would remember me.
I'm hoping some of you could give me a little feedback and hopefully some of you have been in the same situation I'm in.
Thanks

Take classes before applying.

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[FakeEmpire]

I was in the same situation (2008 grad as well) and no one on SDN was very helpful. Hopefully I can give you some. In my situation, I couldn't take a class because I don't live in a community large enough to have college level science classes available. If I was shooting for a LOR, I figured an online class wouldn't cut it.

If you remember any of your professors I actually went back and emailed some of my old professors from way back 2006-2008. I told them my story (blah blah medical school, need your help, blah blah), sent my transcripts (so they could verify my story) along with my resume and asked them just to write something about me. I tried to include something in my email that I remembered about their class to personalize it. I sent 3 emails and 2 said they would (actually, I got an "of course") and 1 said they didn't feel comfortable. It's not the best situation, but if I hadn't done it I wouldn't be sitting here with an acceptance right now.

Most medical schools I talked with said you at least need the science LOR as a place holder, to make the cut, but you can add other letters that are more quality to your file. In total I had 2 terrible (or maybe mediocre) science letters, 3 awesome letters from non science faculty and one from my current job.

 

[alshin88]

I was in a similar situation... although less time had passed since I graduated. Obviously the quality and personal nature of the letter is going to suffer. But not a single professor answered my email requests for a LOR. However, I went directly to the professors office and they wrote me letters. I think face to face they are much more likely to take you up on the request

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[jaa91107]

Thank you all so much for your helpful responses! I will definitely use your advice!

 

[kami333]

If you remember any of your professors I actually went back and emailed some of my old professors from way back 2006-2008. I told them my story (blah blah medical school, need your help, blah blah), sent my transcripts (so they could verify my story) along with my resume and asked them just to write something about me. I tried to include something in my email that I remembered about their class to personalize it. I sent 3 emails and 2 said they would (actually, I got an "of course") and 1 said they didn't feel comfortable. It's not the best situation, but if I hadn't done it I wouldn't be sitting here with an acceptance right now.

Most medical schools I talked with said you at least need the science LOR as a place holder, to make the cut, but you can add other letters that are more quality to your file. In total I had 2 terrible (or maybe mediocre) science letters, 3 awesome letters from non science faculty and one from my current job.

^ Same here, in my case it was from my postbacc, I had to email 7 of them before I could get 2. I probably could have followed up on some of them since it was the middle of summer and only 1 of the 5 that I didn't get a letter from replied and said no.

I applied with 2 science (one from 2007, another from 2009), a non-science from 2008, and 2 very strong PI/employment (old boss is an MD/PhD, the current one is an MD). On the secondaries that let me rank letters I put the 2 PI letters first.