Secondary: waiving of requirements e-mail and when to send it

At some schools you may have to get permission for that. If they need three academic letters (two sci, one non-sci) they may waive the one non-sci if you have a work letter or something else, if you are non-traditional. I have already run into this at a couple of schools and have had to ask for special permission. So be careful in how you substitute your letters.

Also, I'm pretty clear that you just have to have your requirements done before matriculation. If you have them planned for the year, you put them on AMCAS as FUTURE/CURRENT and indicate that you're doing them. You may want to check with your schools to make sure this is fine, but I know for a fact that some schools will still let you apply because the prereqs are a condition for matriculation, not admission.

At the same time, they want to know how you did in those classes, so they might wait to offer admission until they see your transcripts. But I don't know about that.

 

I would contact (phone, not e-mail) the schools in question right away. The Bio thing might require your school to send information to ok the bio requirement. Also, don't assume that you can replace the PI LOR for an academic one.

 

It is up to each school whether they will waive anything or allow for prereq substitutions. The general rule is likely no. Lots of nontrads have had to track down old college profs to get necessary science letters, because they were strictly required. Similarly, some (most) schools are sticklers for the prereqs (some won't even count literature classes as english if offered by the wrong department). Assume you are not able to do any of the things you suggested unless explicitly given permission. And I would not expect permission from most places, based on personal experiences.

 

I graduated college in '94 so I would have a tough time getting recs from my undergrad days. The two med schools I contacted about this were willing to waive it.

The prereqs thing would be tough to waive, though, I'd imagine.

 

I have a similar situation. I have one science prof from a biochem class, and one letter from my PI. I thought I could sneak this in, since I got credit for the research and he had to give me a grade after I turned in my thesis. Do you think the PI counts as a science prof?