science recs = engineering recs?

[anotherhopeful]

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hey guys,

when med schools ask for letters from science faculty, that includes engineering right?

thanks!

 

[LauraMac]

in my opinion, yes. i'm using one engineering letter (quantitative cell biology - biomedical engineering) as a science letter and one (a class about circuits - electrical engineering) as a nonscience letter. i think it's your call.

 

[derf]

in my opinion, yes. i'm using one engineering letter (quantitative cell biology - biomedical engineering) as a science letter and one (a class about circuits - electrical engineering) as a nonscience letter. i think it's your call.

they would accept the circuits as nonscience???

 

[LauraMac]

they would accept the circuits as nonscience???

i don't really know. i also have a psychology letter, so maybe i should just use that instead. i have five letters and wanted to use each one at least a few times. but i really have no idea what i'm doing with these damn letters, so maybe people should not be taking my advice...

 

[jlee9531]

i always thought they meant non science being the humanities. to see if you branched out from the science/tech classes.

 

[Jason110]

I'm an engineering major. Here's how I broke it down:

If AMCAS classified the class as a 'science' (BCPM), then the rec counts as a science recommendation. If not, then it counts as a non-science. Non-science doesn't necessarily mean humanities, unless specified on the application as such.

But what do I know? My school sends a composite letter, so it doesn't matter to me anyway.

Jason

 

[Pooh Chong]

If you didn't classify it as a science in your AMCAS why in the world would a medical school see it as a science rec? BCPM...(i would say minus the M though). Biology/Chemistry/Physics department would count.

I specifically asked my pre-prof office and this is what they specifically stated.

 

[chopper]

While I agree with you in principle, Engineering classes definately ARE NOT BCPM as far as AMCAS goes. Many threads on that over the past couple months.

Now, will a school accept an engineering rec as a science rec? Only 1 answer: CALL THEM. You won't get the right answer on SDN, and I'm sure this is important enough to spend the 5 minutes to find out. Oh, and I would do this to all schools you are applying to. You don't want to be out 30 bucks for AMCAS, 50-100 bucks for a secondary, and whatever in time becuase they don't 'accept' your letter. I'm sure they are not all the same, so you probably want to call each one. Let us know what they say

-chop

 

[Jason110]

this conversation only applies to those without a committee letter, right?

This conversation is moot if you don't have a committee letter. Almost every school says you can turn in a committee composite letter or the individual letters. Not one school specified what type of recs need to make up the committee letter (at least not at the 40 schools I applied to).

Jason

 

[derf]

bumping this one. can anyone confirm that an engineering class will be counted as NON-science if it wasn't classified as part of BCPM. Or are they looking for humanities, social sciences, etc for the non-sci.

 

[anotherhopeful]

hey guys,

i called up a lotta schools, and they do accept engineering letters as science letters

 

[LauraMac]

i emailed all the schools i'm sending secondaries to. most didn't care and said it was my call. some even said just try your best to get 2 science and 1 nonscience. one school said that quantitative cell biology would be science and circuits would be nonscience.

my advice is to look at the content of the course and then decide. i did not count quantitative cell biology as BCPM when filling out AMCAS, because it was an engineering class, and they specifically have engineering as a category. however, it had a lot of biology, chemistry, and math in it, so i am using it as a science letter. so, just use your best judgment. i doubt a school will decide to overlook your entire application because you used a biomedical engineering class as science when they thought it should be nonscience or because you used it as nonscience when they thought it should be science.