NYMC's LOR policies

im in the same boat.....i gave up this secondary when i read it because i dont have a non science rec letter....its too late to get one.......and i dont know who i would ask...etc . etc... but i applied to 32 schools so my list is still a long one.........but they will throw out ure app if its not right..

 

From what I've heard, they are very stringent on their policies. Also, be careful about calling out adcoms like you do in the subject heading. They read SDN, and if you post identifiable information on this forum it can come back to hurt you.

 

just so you know, a lot of school require a letter from a non-science prof and I think a lot of schools will be stringent about it.

 

It gets worse!

With my application last year, NYMC didn't consider one of my science LOR's to be valid because the professor taught me pharmacology. Apparently pharmacology is not a science (Funny b/c my degree majoring in pharmacology was a bachelor's of SCIENCE!)

They had no problem with a graduate student who taught me drama writing a non-science LOR, but an assistant professor of pharmacology was a big deal. Go figure.

Just make sure you have backup LOR's in case they don't like one you send. I didn't, so my NYMC app was trashed.

 

Do schools who require non-science LOR's usually take committee letters in place of all required letters? Or do some schools require you to get individual letters on top of your committee letter?

 

I haven't filled out NYMC yet, but from looking at the instructions, NYMC doesn't require non-science. It just says if you don't have committee letter, you have to have three individual letters, with at least two from science. I take it that the third could be also from science or non-science.

 

If you have a committee letter you can proceed without filling in anything. Just put in the name of your University.

 

what if we don't have a letter from our major? Do we just skip this secondary?

 

Yea but then my Information Science degree is considered a BS and I could also get a BS in German....I don't really consider E-Commerce Law or Goethe science either...of course pharmacology is a bit different but still.

 

You can't be serious. How is pharmacology not a science? I submitted a letter from a pharmacology professor, so I guess I'm screwed.

 

what if you've been out of school for a few years, had a crappy undergrad (did an smp tho, and have a few LORs from there I can use) and a postbac (1 UG science here)

Does anyone know if we have to have a letter from a class taken as an actual undergrad? Will LORs from grad or smp's be okay?

 

funny, i just came here to ask about this. they require 2 science and one from your major (science or non-science). I didn't realize this and only have one from a non-science (plus the two sciences). Then it says if you have been out of school since before 2003 that you can replace these with academically related letters. I emailed them to see about this since I graduated before '03 and haven't heard back.

I tried to fill it out w/ a non-science, non-major and it wouldn't let me proceed. I wish the schools would be a little more consistent in their requirements. I have 6 letters already and if that's not enough I don't know what I'll have to do.

Was anyone else able to get around this?

 

Oh, great. Me too. Maybe they will count that as my non-science?

I had two others, one from Biochemistry and one from Genetics. I wonder if those are science ??

 

I **** you not. When they told me that they "do not consider pharmacology a science" I was pissed and didn't even want to talk to them. Perhaps that wasn't a wise choice, but I ended up getting in somewhere else so it doesn't matter now.

I can understand if there is a discrepency between whether pharmacology is a biology course or a health sciences course, but not-science?

In your case, if they give you flack for it, hound them until they concede.

 

I email them and they emailed me back with a copy of their policy that is on their website.
But I don't think you need a non-science... I put in n/a for the non-science part and i was able to continue.

 

They really don't say you need a non-science. It says "AT LEAST 2 Science". I took the non-science spot to mean that the professor you put there didn't necessarily have to be science and I put a science prof there. We'll see what they do with that, although i submitted on 7/20 and my secondary application still hasn't been processed, so maybe it's headed for the garbage . . .

 

no no no. Like almost every other medical school, they want a letter from a humanities professor. They want to see that you are proficient in the non-science related disciplines as well. You made a BIG mistake. If I were you, I would get ahold of another letter from an english or a history professor, FAST. It would be a shame with your stats not to be accepted anywhere (and you won't be if you don't have the correct LORs).

 

Letters received today . . . "Your secondary application is complete and currently under review". In all honesty, out of 15 schools I applied to only 1 (WFU) said that they wanted a ns letter, so in my limmited experience it's the exception rather than the rule. That said, if I were to do it all over again, I'd make sure to get a good ns letter, instead of scrambling for a mediocre one like i'm doing right now.

 

Maybe, but i don't have any good ns LOR

 

Oh calm down. I can think of bigger mistakes. If it doesn't say "submit a non-science LOR or we WILL NOT consider you" then why is submitting a 3rd science letter a problem? There can be writing involved in science classes and science teachers can address your ability to effectively communicate- they're not illiterate dunces just because they're scientists and not english lit phds.