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If you answer NO, what do you think is the minimum grade that you have to get?
Would you still ask for a LOR even if you did not get an A?
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RAD11 said:
I personally didn't ask anyone for an LOR where I got below an A-. That's probably a good limit unless you took multiple courses with them and got mostly A's. If you really know them well (have done research with them, etc.) and think they will rave about you, I could see getting a letter even if the grades were closer to B+/B range, but that's pushing it. Most people are getting LORs from people they think will have positive things to say, so you can assume that most people are screening out their lower grade professors, and that most professors only get asked by students who did well. It would be hard for a prof to rave about you with a lower grade if he also gets asked by a dozen A students, and wants to preserve some credibility with the schools.
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I'm not sure if this counts, but I got a B+ in a class, asked for a letter of rec from the professor, and later got an A in another class taught by the same person. My performance in the second class ended up going into the letter- but I was willing to settle fo having one based off the A.
Of course, I knew the prof pretty well even before taking the second course. That's the most important thing- how well does this person know me?
All told, the 4 academic letters I got broke down like this: B+/A, A-/A, A, A+
Of course, I knew the prof pretty well even before taking the second course. That's the most important thing- how well does this person know me?
All told, the 4 academic letters I got broke down like this: B+/A, A-/A, A, A+
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I asked a prof who gave me B+ It depends on how the rest of the class did.
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i asked for a letter of reccomedation from a professor whose class i got a B- in
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I only got an A from one of the professors I asked...and I had no problems. There's a lot more to doing "well" in a class than getting an A. Showing genuine interest in the material, working hard, doing work outside of class or even just getting on the professor's "good side" are all equally if not more important than the final grade when it comes to writing a strong letter. The letter is vouching for you as a person, not how well you did in the class...that's already on your transcript.
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I had three letters from people I didn't even take classes from (mentor, research advisor, etc.). I never even thought about the grades I got from the profs I did ask, just whether or not they knew me well enough and if I had put in the maximum amount of effort in their class. I think pre-meds are too grade focused. 
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jbrice1639 said:
Listen to this one...he understands the point of a req.
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BooMed said:I had three letters from people I didn't even take classes from (mentor, research advisor, etc.). I never even thought about the grades I got from the profs I did ask, just whether or not they knew me well enough and if I had put in the maximum amount of effort in their class. I think pre-meds are too grade focused.
Non-prof LORs are different -- you are getting recs for other kinds of performance. For academic LORs, grades matter because the professor will be asked by a lot of people to write letters, and you want yours to be as good as the person who got the A. While he may know you from office hours, he is unlikely to know you all that well (as compared to a mentor, research PI, etc.), and probably will know the A students just as well. If the prof cares about his own integrity/credibility with med schools, he may have different wording for the person who got an A, versus the one who didn't. (He obviously won't want to give the same rave reviews to the same school about an A student and a B student -- looks bad). However if you know a prof beyond just the usual office hour shmoozing, that is different -- he may have enough other good things to say that it would be worth it to get an LOR.
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Shredder said:
well, i didn't get any from straight out profs (one from undergrad thesis advisor, one from grad master's advisor, and two "non-trad" -- my scientist boss of 5 years and the doc that i volunteer with). but i got B+'s and A-'s in my undergrad advisor's classes and didn't bat an eye about it (the classes were all upper div or grad level, and mostly populated with grad students).
having been on the other side of the fence (writing LOR's, I was a TA in grad school and have supervised other volunteers at a clinic), i can say that it's not the grade that matters, for me at least, when i wrote a rec. i had plenty of A students that were a dime a dozen, overly grade conscious, and not all that interesting. i had a number of students who got as low as a B or B-, even, who show great interest and passion for the subject, put in a lot of effort, and were just bad test takers. i was able to write them better rec's, b/c i had something to say about them more than, "yeah, they could play the game and get the grade."
so, i'd say it's more about the relationship than the grade, and a good prof can separate the two, within reason.
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Please do not ask someone to write a LOR for you if earned less than an A in the class unless you have some kind of personal friendship with this LOR writer that guarantees you some kind of phenomenol letter writer.
Of course, if you have no choice except to ask a prof from a class in which you earned less than an A, then go ahead and do what you have to do.
Of course, if you have no choice except to ask a prof from a class in which you earned less than an A, then go ahead and do what you have to do.
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noonday said:
While that's well and good, and I agree that the best LOR will be one in which the professor (or TA) actually knows and likes the student, it will not be missed by adcoms what grade was received in the class for which a person got the academic LOR. Nobody gets into med school with "great interest and passion" if they cannot achieve the grades too. In fact it's possibly a bad thing if the student was very interested and passionate about a subject and still didn't do that well. Being a "bad test taker" is not a good response, because, frankly, med school is full of tests -- hard ones. A good LOR will say all that you described AND that the person mastered difficult material and received a grade of ___. If the grade was not good (eg. B-), it may be assumed that the prof will just write a nice LOR for anyone who asks, which taints it's credibility. Thus I posit that you want to know your professor a bit outside of class AND have gotten at least an A-/B+. That's my opinion.
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I think that getting to know the professor and working with them is more important than earning an A. If all they can say is "They got an A", the letter won't be worth much because the school already knows that from your transcript.
I think that you should at least have a B in their class(es) though.
I think that you should at least have a B in their class(es) though.
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I would... even if I didn't get an A but the professor knows that I'm a hardworking student. If I get below a B though I wouldn't. It really depends on if they know you well or not.
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I did once, but he offered to write a good LOR, and there were very few A's in the class (five, I think, including the A-'s too).
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you people are honestly ridiculous... Ask letter from professors who know you best... who cares what grade you get... i had professors who gave me a c right me a letter (it was a damn good letter)... grades should not be an indicator of who writes you a letter at all... If you spent 3-4 years in college and do not have a personal relationship with your professors you have honestly wasted the beuaty of a college education/experience. There is so much more to everything than grades and sometimes all the whining on this sight about A's versus A-'s vs. B+'s truly makes me sick to think that I might actually end up at school with some of you people... Everybody should chill out... get a life... and realize there is far more to life than the grade you got in orgo or biochem... which school you went to... etc... I honestly worry that some of you people don't have any sort of life outside of trying to get into medical school... Its abig world out there... get out and explore it and everything will fall into place...
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noonday said:
Nobody on this board is saying one needs to get all A's, just that the couple of professors who are going to write you academic letters should have seen you actually excel in an academic setting IN ADDITION TO knowing you at some level. And FYI I've seen LORs which indicate the grade the person received in his/her class -- it's not unusual.
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what highclimber said, and then some. 2 of my 3 LOR writers always talked about how much they hated the majority of people that asked them for letters because they were greedy grade-mongers. profs see right through that bullsh*t. i got letters from classes in which i got :
A
A-
B+
i think the one i got a B+ in was my best.
-mota
A
A-
B+
i think the one i got a B+ in was my best.
-mota
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I would have been embarrassed to ask for a letter from a professor who gave me less than an A.
And trust me, I had a life outside of classes. It annoys me when people who do poorly in classes claim that the students getting A's are the uptight ones who never do anything but study.
And trust me, I had a life outside of classes. It annoys me when people who do poorly in classes claim that the students getting A's are the uptight ones who never do anything but study.
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robotsonic said:I would have been embarrassed to ask for a letter from a professor who gave me less than an A.
And trust me, I had a life outside of classes. It annoys me when people who do poorly in classes claim that the students getting A's are the uptight ones who never do anything but study.
That's a good point. Often times the students who get A's are much more efficient studiers and actually study less than the people who go crazy with it and burn out. And a lot of really good students also have a great memory and only have to read something once or twice to get it.
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