Suggestions when not using an pre-med advisory board

[ladpm]

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Hi -

My pre-med advisor does not seem to be very helpful with my questions and am hoping people here might know. I'm not going through my undergrad's pre-med comittee board and wanted to know what I should do?

1. Will this hurt my chances to get accepted anywhere if don't use them?
2. Do I have to give the people who are writing my LOR all the envelops for the schools I will be applying this summer?
3. How many LOR should I get and from whom? (I finished grad school last year)
4. Which schools take non-trads?
5. Will my prequisites be too old (graduated in 2000)?

Sorry for the massive questions

 

[DrBowtie]

1. Some places want you to explain why you didnt use the pre-med comittee if your school has one.
2. I would get an account on interfolio.com That way the letter writers only send 1 letter.
3. Minimum 3 (2 science, 1 non-sci) from academic profs.
4. All of them
5. No

 

[RxnMan]

Hi -

My pre-med advisor does not seem to be very helpful with my questions and am hoping people here might know. I'm not going through my undergrad's pre-med comittee board and wanted to know what I should do?

1. Will this hurt my chances to get accepted anywhere if don't use them?
2. Do I have to give the people who are writing my LOR all the envelops for the schools I will be applying this summer?
3. How many LOR should I get and from whom? (I finished grad school last year)
4. Which schools take non-trads?
5. Will my prequisites be too old (graduated in 2000)?

Sorry for the massive questions

1. Not directly - it will make things more difficult. It is a big advantage to have someone on your side who's job is to get you into med school 40 hours a week. They also write committee letters - which schools expect to see. Separate LORs can be hard to coordinate, and it is sometimes hard to get those reccommenders to remember to write your letter. You have to make sure they all get to the right places. And as Brett said, you have to explain why you didn't use the service provided.
2. Envelopes are nice, but they're not always needed - some departments will send such things for free.
3. That's dependent on the school you're applying to - and this is another place where it gets hard. If you apply to school 1, 2, and 3, which require 2, 2, and 3 science letters respectively, but then one letter writer forgets to write to school #2, (but doesn't tell you,) and another gets the wrong envelopes and all of his/her letters get sent to #3, you can see the difficulties. You won't know about that first letter writer until you call up each school individually, and confirm which letters have arrived. Then if you apply to 27 schools like I did last year...
4. All schools take non-trads. Most are friendly to non-trads - switching careers means drive towards medicine, and non-trads bring much needed experience, perspective, funk, intelligence, rugged good looks, and wit to med schools.
5. Probably not. I remember 10 years being the cut-off, but check with each school you apply. Which is what you'll have to do anyways, since you don't want to use your committee.