<p>One more question:</p>
<p>DS has had a LOR from his English professor, a LOR from his physics professor, and a LOR from his senior project professor. (Note: All biology students at his school need to take a two-semester long “biology research” project before they can be graduated with a BS degree.)</p>
<p>Does he have enough LORs?</p>
<p>^ Most schools require 2 science LORs and a non-science LOR - these need to be from professors with whom the applicant has actually taken a class, so as long as the senior project is listed as a class on his transcript and the prfessor giving the LOR is the one “teaching” the class, I’m guessing it should work.</p>
<p>But since it is kind of a weird case, he might be safer to get another LOR from one of his other science class professors. He can still submit the LOR from the project professor. Just send any extra LORs with the required ones (but limit it to maybe 2 extra LORs, so pick the strongest ones)</p>
<p>Thanks, Icarus.</p>
<p>The senior project is indeed listed as a class on his transcript, with a grade. The course name is likely called “Research in Biology.” The professor/PI is actually an MD who leads a large research project at the medical school and is also a practicing doctor and a section head of a division of the hospital. He submitted the grade to another professor in the biology department who is officially responsible for the senior project class, for all senior students.</p>
<p>I think you are right in suggesting that he might be safer to get another LOR from one of his other science class professors. One thing I do not fully understand is that, even though DS got A’s from all of his biology classes but he still could not find any professor who knows him well enough to write a LOR for him. One of his biology professors actually said to the class that he will only write LOR for any “A” student in his class but DS still hesitates to ask him to write a LOR because he thinks the professor does not know him. Either he is not initiative enough, or this is a downside of going to a large research university. – There are just too many premeds and most Science-Academy-type professors probably do not care very much about these lowly premeds. Heck…maybe even the post-docs are not very visible in these several-million-dollars-a-year labs. DS took a couple of classes from the non-molecular-biology side of the biology department and he felt the professors from that side of the same department actually would know most of the students. He once complained that whenever there are too many premed students in a class, the whole atmosphere is not right. It is not the course material that is not right; what is not right is the attitude of the students and the perception of the professor toward these students.</p>
<p>Getting a high grade in a class is necessary but not sufficient for a good LOR.</p>
<p>DD attended Berkeley and definitely one part of her decision to not apply until after senior year was the need to be in classes with profs who could have a chance to get to know her. She sought courses in upper div bio (her major) for both terms, smaller & more personal, she was able to have 3 of her profs for both terms and really make a connection, the year before she would have been nowhere near that type of relationship.</p>
<p>Are there any profs who your son feels would know him well enough to recognise him outside of class? Any one he feels any sort of connection with?</p>
<p>NCG, definitely agree with you on what you wrote. DS was inducted as a PBK member as a science major (purely because of his grades) but he still has to search high and low to find a science professor who may know him personally. (Maybe his EQ in connecting with a professor is not that great?!)</p>
<p>My son knows his physics professor outside of class because he met his professor regularly at some music/art/dance place near the campus. The professor took his 5-yo daughter there for a music lesson (or a ballet lesson?) and my son took his guitar lesson at the same place. Both of them were sitting in the waiting room before their lessons.</p>
<p>The PI knows my son because he is kind enough to take him under his wing for a year.</p>
<p>The English professor knows my son because it is a small writing seminar class and the professor knows every student.</p>
<p>I think a part of his problem is that he chose to take his upper-division bios which are taught in the format of intro bio class: a relatively large class where the scores of two or three tests determine the final grade, like in most of intro bio/chem classes. It is likely that he is good at getting a high grade when the instruction format is like this. It does not help when many of these bio classes are team-taught by several experts in their specialized fields, and each expert professors may show up only for 2 or 3 weeks in a semester. He should have taken more seminar-like, “touchy-feeling” classes where there are more interactions between the professor and the student.</p>
<p>He may try to ask another professor who taught him an intro bio lab to write him a LOR.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>mcat2, I think you’re on the right track but I’d caution against thinking that more is always better. 3 stupendous rec’s is loads better than 3 stupendous and 1 ho-hum.</p>
<p>Curm, Thanks for your input.
BTW, do you happen to know the answer to the question I raised above on my post #60: On TMDSAS, do we need to translate credit units to semester hours?
Also, I was out of town for many weeks when your D made her decision to go to YSM. It is kind of very late to congratulate her here. It is better late than never!</p>
<p>No. Sorry, I don’t but I know my D wore them out on the phone asking similar questions. Call them and get the straight skinny.</p>
<p>DS got the answer from his premed adviser regarding how to translate the credit unit for TMDSAS. 1 credit unit = 4 semester hours and 0.5 credit unit = 2 semester hours. He normally trusts what his premed adviser told him very much. </p>
<p>Hmmm…then a typical student from his school is graduated with 4*36=144 semester hours. Is this about right?</p>
<p>He was saying that Amcas would not submit without the LOR but having looked through the site myself today I don’t think that’s correct. It appears that some schools will not consider the first application complete without the LOR’s and others will hold off on needing the LOR’s until the supplemental is submitted. So I think we’re going to be moving ahead without the other LOR’s.</p>
<p>Definitely move ahead without the LORs. The AMCAS LOR service isn’t even used by all schools yet, so there’s no way they can require you to submit LORs before accepting your application.</p>
<p>If my school uses a letter packet option for recs, (my school collects the letters, and then sends it to AMCAS) will I still be able to specify which individual schools get which recs?</p>
<p>No, they’ll get the entire packet as sent to AMCAS.</p>
<p>Steeler, has that changed? Last year D was able to designate packet 1 to schools x, y, z and packet 2 to a,b,c and packet 3 to d,e,f. Or maybe I’m hallucinating again. 
</p>
<p>If they’re sent to AMCAS in multiple packets (or different combinations of the same set of letters), then you can definitely designate the sets of letters to various schools. However, if your pre-med office sends your letters to AMCAS in one lump sum (as mine did), then AMCAS will receive it as such.</p>
<p>Instead of…</p>
<ol>
<li>Professor Watson, biology</li>
<li>Professor Hawking, physics</li>
<li>Professor Farmer, anthropology</li>
</ol>
<p>…where you can designate letters 1, 2, and 3 to School X, letters 2 and 3 to School Y, etc., AMCAS will just list it as:</p>
<ol>
<li>Adviser Kaplan, letter packet, School Z</li>
</ol>
<p>lol. I’d just go with those three and call it a day. </p>
<p>I remember my D did have 3 or 4 different packets. A 6 letter packet and two different 5 letter packets and maybe a 4 letter packet. I remember it was a pain in the rear for her advisor, but he did it.</p>
<p>I asked for 6 letters, which I think is overkill. I planned on only sending in about 5, with the sixth used as a way to “shake the tree” if I don’t hear back by late October. However, I think my school will send them all together anyway. Should I tell my pre-med office to hold out on one of the letters?</p>
<p>I would recommend having your school collection people send the packet to Interfolio. Our school charged $25 per mailing and some schools did not take the AAMCAS letters. By having them all at Interfolio, she sent some to AAMCAS, some to TX, some directly to schools and was able to use some for scholarship apps too (she asked the same prof to send 2 versions, MD school version and worthy scholarship recipient version) I think it was only $4 to send a packet from Interfolio</p>
<p>^This sounds helpful, thanks! I forwarded to my D.</p>