Who'd you all get letters of rec from (for postbacc and/or medschools)

[IWannaBe-A-Dr]

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I was just curious to know who y'all got letters of rec from. Especially for those people that got into their choices of post baccs and after maybe medschools.

my first post here!

 

[LynnKat]

I was just curious to know who y'all got letters of rec from. Especially for those people that got into their choices of post baccs and after maybe medschools.

my first post here!

I got my post bacc letters of reference from my boss and a colleague I had worked with closely. I used an old academic reccomendation from an undergrad professor that was on file at my undergrad careers services. There wasn't a problem and I was accepted.

I wasn't pre med (though the post bacc I applied to was mainly geared that way), but for Vet School I got a rec from a vet, the head tech at the practice where I worked, a volunteer supervisor and a post bacc prof.

 

[Lawguy]

I got my post bacc letters of reference from my boss and a colleague I had worked with closely. I used an old academic reccomendation from an undergrad professor that was on file at my undergrad careers services. There wasn't a problem and I was accepted.

Out of curiousity, did the boss and work colleague who wrote your letters work with you in a clinical environment, or did you work with them at a non-medicine related job? I've wondered about this too, with regard to my own application -- I have lots of people in my profession who I'm sure would write me glowing LORs, but none of them has anything to do with the medical profession. Has anyone out there gotten into the competitive programs without an LOR from someone in a clinical or science-related setting?

 

[sailaway415]

I used to work in the computer graphics/visual effects industry. One of my recs was from a supervisor/co-worker who I had worked on two completely different projects with. He was like a mentor to me while I was working...so no, that was not from someone in a clinical environment at all. My second rec I got from a math professor (which was my major in college). I had not had one on file from career services. I called him out of the blue, and since I'd been out of college almost 6 years, he didn't even remember me but agreed to write me a rec after I gave him a bunch of info about what I had done in college in the Math Department, and reminding him of the classes I had taken. I finally got a third rec from a High School AP biology teacher/hockey coach. These seemed to work because I got into a good post-bac program....so if I got in on all of that, I'd say, at least for post-bac, you don't necessarily need people directly from a clinical setting. However, when I apply to med school I am going to be sure to get at least one from that type of environment because I think that might be more important for med school....

 

[LynnKat]

Out of curiousity, did the boss and work colleague who wrote your letters work with you in a clinical environment, or did you work with them at a non-medicine related job? I've wondered about this too, with regard to my own application -- I have lots of people in my profession who I'm sure would write me glowing LORs, but none of them has anything to do with the medical profession. Has anyone out there gotten into the competitive programs without an LOR from someone in a clinical or science-related setting?

Not clinical at all and I had no science letters of rec. One was a teaching rec, because I had TA'd. The other was from a boss at a non medical, non scientific job. The other was from an English professor (my college major). I did have some clinical volunteering at the time, but no letter from this.

I think it depends on the program and your GPA and scores. Who the recs come from might be more important if you're doing the program to raise your GPA vs taking pre reqs for the first time. I actually talked to counselors at programs and some were understanding about my having been out of school and essentially wanting to do a post bacc so I could get science and clinical experience and recs. If I already had them I wouldn't have been applying. Others told me I needed all that before I applied. Those programs I skipped, because they weren't going to meet my needs.

Hope that helps!