LORs criteria: science/humanities professor vs. lab?

[UCDavispremed92]

Main Question

- I have seen that the "standard advice" is to have 2 LOR from professors in hard sciences, 1 from professor in humanities, and ≥1 from ECs.

• Does a professor whose lab you work in count as a "hard science professor" letter if you never actually took a class with them? I'm assuming yes, but just want to be sure.

• Receiving a humanities letter is standard then - or is this just something that is "often said, little practiced?"


LOR Sources: (if TLDR, just read/respond to above): Please offer Evaluation of whether any glaring deficiencies


Requested/Received

- Policy Director at healthcare policy organization (one of major ones, can't get more specific or would be revealing): strong

• 3 month internship (I am political science major)

- Stats professor: Definitely strong - I've only met about 5 Germans and all of them were awesome, disciplined people with a wry sense of humor

• 1 quarter

- Lab professor: virology

• 2.5 years

• no pubs yet but forthcoming would likely credit me, not in time though


Not yet Requested

- NP Who Runs ER of which I am employee (hesitance due to not having strong personal relationship - he "runs" ER administratively but is infrequently there physically)

• Current: scribe (6 months)

• Prior (several years ago): EMT for 8 months

- Political science professor (not even peripherally-related to medicine curriculum)

• potential letter I addressed above with hesitancy


Thank you for any and all input

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[UCDavispremed92]

That was a helpful comment, thank you. I don't mean to be at all dismissive of your input with the hair-splitting below, I'm only doing this because to reach out to "former professor 1, 2..." to check a box is going to dilute the quality of my letter pool, and I'm somewhat of a marginal case in fulfilling the requirement on both of my pre-existing "strong" letters. (there are threads where it is said stats does count but I would agree it is not "ideal" or what they likely had in mind)

2. I see. Looks like I have the closest relationship with two professors who only "half-way" (or not at all) count toward the science requirement. Great
• The stats course was "Statistics for BioSci" and is a premed-specific course (generally a requirement now) - everyone taking this course is pre-med/pre-vet/pursuing PhD. I don't know if that changes anything
4. Yes, it's a lab. I never took them for a class, but I did take the course they teach (biochem) - the professor with whom I took each of my courses is not even listed on the transcript, so couldn't I just leave whether I took a class with them or not unaddressed while referring exclusively to my work with "..professor X of the xxx department in the lab...?"

Would genomics at a community college (pre-transfer) be acceptable to include? My relationships with my professors in 300+ classes are necessarily going to be pretty vanilla - which is why that isn't who is reflected in my existing letters...

 

[THEBACKANDFORTH]

That was a helpful comment, thank you. I don't mean to be at all dismissive of your input with the hair-splitting below, I'm only doing this because to reach out to "former professor 1, 2..." to check a box is going to dilute the quality of my letter pool, and I'm somewhat of a marginal case in fulfilling the requirement on both of my pre-existing "strong" letters. (there are threads where it is said stats does count but I would agree it is not "ideal" or what they likely had in mind)

2. I see. Looks like I have the closest relationship with two professors who only "half-way" (or not at all) count toward the science requirement. Great
• The stats course was "Statistics for BioSci" and is a premed-specific course (generally a requirement now) - everyone taking this course is pre-med/pre-vet/pursuing PhD. I don't know if that changes anything
4. Yes, it's a lab. I never took them for a class, but I did take the course they teach (biochem) - the professor with whom I took each of my courses is not even listed on the transcript, so couldn't I just leave whether I took a class with them or not unaddressed while referring exclusively to my work with "..professor X of the xxx department in the lab...?"

Would genomics at a community college (pre-transfer) be acceptable to include? My relationships with my professors in 300+ classes are necessarily going to be pretty vanilla - which is why that isn't who is reflected in my existing letters...

I can’t answer your genomics question with any certainty (I would say yes though), but I do know that you don’t have any “science” letters that will be accepted everywhere

Find a way to come up with two, use them for schools that require two science letters, and your other letters with schools that are more liberal with requirements. I would try to get at least one upper division chem or bio letter. And I would also ask each school individually if the math stats letter counts as a science letter, then use accordingly. But definitely get two bio chem physics anatomy letters—you don’t have to use them for every school

I would not try to get your research letter passed as a science letter, simply because it isn’t. Use a supervisor letter, which is valuable in its own right

Edit: I applied with six letters, some stronger than others, and filled in the requirements possible. My best were from two humanities professors and one bio prof, and I used these where I could with positive results.

 

[UCDavispremed92]

Right. I was thinking along those lines. In the case that the school does not accept the PI/stats letter as a science professor, I use the weaker science professor letters to compensate. I do think my "pulling down the average" on letter idea is the right way to think about this, such that I would not use these weaker compulsory science professor letters otherwise.

It would be hard to deny the genomics one I think, as he has also taught at a UC.

This is no one's (here) fault - the requirements are what the requirements are, but let me just say that I think required premed courses (of which stats is a more recent addition) and professors who teach science courses with whom you have a relationship pertaining to their field of study should fulfill the requirement. As someone who did not major in the hard sciences, we are talking about a pool of only 6 professors in the aforementioned classes, each of which is composed of ~300+. Only half of this group, at best, is be to be trusted with letter-writing. How is that not to be an anchor on my letter quality? Not everyone went to private school. Rant over.

 

[THEBACKANDFORTH]

Right. I was thinking along those lines. In the case that the school does not accept the PI/stats letter as a science professor, I use the weaker science professor letters to compensate. I do think my "pulling down the average" on letter idea is the right way to think about this, such that I would not use these weaker compulsory science professor letters otherwise.

It would be hard to deny the genomics one I think, as he has also taught at a UC.

This is no one's (here) fault - the requirements are what the requirements are, but let me just say that I think required premed courses (of which stats is a more recent addition) and professors who teach science courses with whom you have a relationship pertaining to their field of study should fulfill the requirement. As someone who did not major in the hard sciences, we are talking about a pool of only 6 professors in the aforementioned classes, each of which is composed of ~300+. Only half of this group, at best, is be to be trusted with letter-writing. How is that not to be an anchor on my letter quality? Not everyone went to private school. Rant over.

Biology and chemistry excellence are essential in med school. That is why schools want to see evaluations from professors who have taught you in these subjects. I imagine the stats letter will be accepted at many schools, but you should submit at least one core science letter To every school if you can.

I just signed up for classes.. the course descriptions included biochem, cell bio, anatomy, physiology, histology, genetics, pharmacology and similar. Stats was not included.

 

[UCDavispremed92]

I'm not disagreeing with any of that, just to say that I do not think the fact that I was able to have a great relationship with my stats professor is unrelated to the fact that premed students know what you have just said to be true and, on this basis, were comparatively unengaged in stats relative to in these aforementioned courses. Thus, they displayed horrendous attendance to both class and office hours such that I was able to stand out from a class of 300.

In other required premed courses you mentioned, a significant contingent of the class is present before/after every lecture asking questions and doing the same at OH. It's a saturated environment. Even as much of assertive as I am (CA students are kind of timid IMO), there's a pretty low ceiling on the kind of relationship you can establish. Upper division is a different story, but like I said not a science major.

While stats isn't literally a med school course, it lays the groundwork for the kind of discussion of the scientific method that is so essential that is somewhat taken for granted, in my opinion. In my letter request, I said that I thought stats was the most important course that I took as an undergrad (I really believe this).

Anyway, thanks for your input but I'm just trying to point out that as a non-science major at a large public university, the incentive structure that is in place is exactly why my letters are not from "THE science" professors.

 

[MedicalDoge]

Too lazy to read all of the posts, but I will answer one thing I saw in the original post. I know that many schools do not count research mentors as "hard science" letters; only letters from professors in the sciences that actually taught you a class fulfill that requirement. However, research letters are awesome and are usually very meaningful and strong since they have known you for a while.