Schools with 2 Science LOR Requirement

[chickenlittle84]

---

Members don't see this ad.

I have a question about Letters of Recommendation. My university's pre-med committee requires three letters of rec for a composite letter. They prefer letters from professors, but they don't care what kind of professor (science vs. non-science). Since we can only submit three, I picked the ones I thought would make me seem most unique - two from non-science professors and one from my current employer. I wasn't worried before since the committee doesn't care, but now I am getting a little worried since a lot of schools require at least two from a science professor...

I asked my Biochem professor for a letter, which I am planning to send to each med school along with the committee letter via interfolio....

Should I not bother applying to schools that require more than one science letter?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[MahSpoon]

I thought that schools required either a composite committee letter or individual letters, not both?

 

[GreenCenter]

The only schools that have this from my experience are:

Harvard
UC San Diego

 

[LaCasta]

I am getting a couple of LORs now even though I am not planning to appy for a year and a half. Would it matter if my letters are a couple years old when I apply?

 

[Trismegistus4]

From my recollection of the application process, most school's requirements surrounding what specific types of individual letters you must send only apply if you are not sending a committee letter. Their secondaries usually read like this:

To satisfy our Letters of Recommendation requirement, you must submit either:
1) A composite letter from your pre-medical committee,
OR
2) A total of five letters, two of which must be from a science professor, one of which must be from a non-science professor, one of which must be from a work supervisor if you have been employed in the past year, etc., etc.

 

[chickenlittle84]

okay, great, so as long as I have a composite letter it doesn't matter what the school requires? Would it still be helpful for me to submit the extra letter from my biochem professor? Thanks!

 

[GreenCenter]

From my recollection of the application process, most school's requirements surrounding what specific types of individual letters you must send only apply if you are not sending a committee letter. Their secondaries usually read like this:

To satisfy our Letters of Recommendation requirement, you must submit either:
1) A composite letter from your pre-medical committee,
OR
2) A total of five letters, two of which must be from a science professor, one of which must be from a non-science professor, one of which must be from a work supervisor if you have been employed in the past year, etc., etc.

Actually, you are right. A science research letter counts toward the 2 science letters, with the exception of Harvard and UCSD, that specify that research letters do NOT count toward this. I don't think any schools require 5 letters. I believe 3 is the mininum for most schools.