<p>What are the required number of rec letters and from who, such as science teacher, etc?</p>
<p>Also, would getting rec letters from nonteachers, such as research lab mentor, shadowed physician, honors program director, etc be worthwhile?</p>
<p>Depends on your UG school and which med schools you’re applying to. </p>
<p>Your undergrad may have a pre-med committee, and so a committee letter will take care of most of your letters.</p>
<p>If you don’t have a committee, then it’s going to depend on the med schools. A total of 3 letters is generally the minimum if there’s no committee letter, though some may want 4. Every school is likely to want at least 1 science professor, some may want 2. When it comes down to letters from non-professors, the biggest thing is you want to make sure that you’re going to get GOOD letters. This seems like a no-brainer, but there are horror stories out there. A good letter from a non-professor is better than a poor letter from a professor.</p>
<p>If your school uses a committee letter, you must have a committee letter. (Otherwise it’s big, fat vote of ‘no confidence’ from your school.) Most schools will provide committee letters for alumni for up tp 5 years after graduation. Letter committees may have their own requirements for who can write for you–please check with health professions advisement at your school.</p>
<p>If your school doesn’t use a committee letter, then you’re free to ask whomever you’d like. </p>
<p>You will usually need 3-4 LORs. </p>
<p>However, you will need to check each med school’s admission site (and perhaps email a few admission directors) to see if they have specific recommendations/requirements for whom your LOR writers must be. (IIRC, D1 said that all of the schools she applied to required at least 2 of her 3 or 4 LORs had to be from science or math profs.)</p>
<p>As for the people you list:</p>
<p>research lab mentor --probably, esp if you had a good working relationship and your relationship was longer than a semester</p>
<p>shadowed physician–only if your shadowing experience with was long term and more than perfunctory (They need to know you to be able to write a convincing letter.) If you are applying to DO programs, many require a letter from a practicing DO in support of your application-- so a physician you shadowed would be probably fall under the category of a required letter.</p>
<p>honors program director–probably not unless you have a close on-going working relationship and he/she can speak to your qualities as a leader or something similiar</p>
<p>For these rec letters, is there a paper form similar to the Common App rec form or is it just literally a letter from the recommender? And, is an applicant able to keep his/her right to see the letter before sending it to the med schools? I’ve tried hard to find anything about this but Google only returns info on AAMC residency rec forms. :/</p>
<p>No forms. Letters must either be written on official letterhead paper, hand signed and sent in directly to AMCAS together with an official AMCAS Letter Request Form in a sealed envelope or submitted via an authorized, secured electronic service. </p>
<p>Details here: <a href=“https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/amcas/faqs/63226/faq_amcasletters.html[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/amcas/faqs/63226/faq_amcasletters.html</a></p>
<p>FAQ about LORs here: <a href=“https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/amcas/faqs/146562/letters_questions_landing_page.html[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/amcas/faqs/146562/letters_questions_landing_page.html</a></p>
<p>LORs are supposed to be confidential and the applicant waives his right to read any LOR that is submitted to AMCAS.</p>
<p>A few schools do not use AMCAS’s letter collection service. For those schools, you will need to check their admissions website to see how they want their LORs submitted. Some require actual paper letters on official letterhead.</p>
<p>My school used a committee letter. Here’s how the committee letter process goes at my school:</p>
<p>Applicants select individuals to write recommendation letters for them. The letters will be sent to the committee. The committee requires 3 letters: 2 science profs who have taught you in the classroom, and another. You can send as many as you like; I sent 8 (2 science profs, 1 nonscience prof, 2 docs I shadowed (for 2yrs each), PI, lady at the agency where I volunteered (2+ yrs), and a mentor). Probably didn’t need 8, but when people offered to write for me I thought it would be in my best interest to accept.</p>
<p>After the committee receives all the letters, a committee interview is scheduled. The committee (2 people) interviews the applicant–somewhat similar to a med school interview, looking back.</p>
<p>The committee assembles information from the interview and snippets from the other letters into “the committee letter” to provide an overall picture of the applicant and how the applicant compares to other applicants from the school. The committee letter, along with all other submitted letters stapled to it, is then sent to AMCAS. AMCAS sends it to the individual schools.</p>
<p>So, when it comes to AMCAS stuff, all I had to do was indicate that I was sending a committee letter, which generates one AMCAS form that is submitted along with the letter. I did not have to tell AMCAS the names etc of each person submitting a letter to the committee. </p>
<p>(In case you were wondering, the head of the committee is the chair of the honors college at my school).</p>
<p>Thank you all for the wonderful replies!</p>