Question about Letters of Recommendation

[130912]

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So, I finished my undergrad in 2005, and at the time, I never really got to know any of my professors... now I want to apply to med school, and I find myself in a bit of a quandary. I'm curious about my LOR situation: I know I can definitely get a good/great LOR from a nonscience professor. And I can also get another LOR from my current boss, who just so happened to be my Organic I professor. The problem here is that I never really got to know him while I was his student (I mean, come on, it was a class of 150+!) but now that I work in his lab, I can get a + reference... but would this count as a LOR from a boss or a LOR from a professor, or what?

Also, how have you other nontrads handled the premed committee letter? I'm done with school and all my pre-recs, so now that I'm no longer a student, how would I go about getting a committee letter? Is this an absolute necessity?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Scottish Chap]

I didn't have a committee letter - even for the schools that asked for one. I just sent in letters from my current employer, my graduate school thesis mentor, and a physician whom I collaborated with on a research project. In hindsight, maybe I should have clarified this point with with the medical schools I was applying to, but nobody seemed to care and it's a moot point now.....

 

[DrPDot]

Before deciding you can't get a committee letter you might want to check with your institution and see if they will provide a committee letter for you as an alum, some will accomodate their graduates as well as their current students.

 

[130912]

I didn't have a committee letter - even for the schools that asked for one. I just sent in letters from my current employer, my graduate school thesis mentor, and a physician whom I collaborated with on a research project. In hindsight, maybe I should have clarified this point with with the medical schools I was applying to, but nobody seemed to care and it's a moot point now.....

Did the schools ask specifically for like, "one letter from a science professor" and "one letter from a non-science professor?" Are they that specific, or are the LORs a bit more flexible than that?

Before deciding you can't get a committee letter you might want to check with your institution and see if they will provide a committee letter for you as an alum, some will accomodate their graduates as well as their current students.

Yeah, I'd imagine I can get one, but the way it sounds at my undergrad institution is that the premed committee meets with the premed students on a semi-regular basis (once or twice a semester) in order to get to know them, etc., and then when letter-writing time rolls around, they rank the students according to some rubrick. I 'm afraid I would probably fare pretty poorly in this system, since I'm essentially out of the loop.

But I guess ultimately I should just e-mail the committee and ask.

Thanks guys!

 

[Scottish Chap]

Did the schools ask specifically for like, "one letter from a science professor" and "one letter from a non-science professor?" Are they that specific, or are the LORs a bit more flexible than that?

To be honest, I don't know. My care and attention to that point was not great but I do know for a fact that all of them asked for a premed committee letter which I did not send. As it is, all three people that wrote my letters served as science professors AND physicians (all MD/PhDs), and I've never had a non-science professor before at the college level.