pre-health committee question

[Samus Aran]

I went to talk to one of the members of the committee today and he told me that I will not be allowed to submit a LOR to the committee from the PI worked for this past summer for a research internship, but that if I really wanted my PI's LOR then I should bypass sending a committee recommendation altogether and just gather my own LOR's. Will adcoms accept the fact that I bypassed my committee so I could get one from a PI I worked with and got to know me very well (and promised that I would receive an excellent LOR from?) I'm worried b/c I know it's preferable in many cases to send a committee recommendation rather than individual LOR's.

The committee member also told me that the committee LOR's must come from professors at my current school only, but I spent my freshman year at another university and was taught by then did research for another professor that I was hoping to get another LOR from, so if I went by way of the committee I would have to unfortunately bypass this LOR as well.

Are these valid reasons for me to bypass the committee recommendation???

(sorry if this was too long)

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[snapdad]

Schools tend to prefer the committee letter, so I'd probably go ahead and do the committee letter and then send the PI's letter as a supplementary letter. There's a place on a lot of schools' secondary applications where you can fill in that you're having someone send a supplementary letter. I used the standard committee letter for most of my schools, but sent a couple of additional letters from grad school profs to a few schools in order to strengthen my app.

Good luck!

 

[Elizabeth1028]

I ran into the same problem as you. My pre-med committee wouldn't let me submit a letter from my PI from the lab I worked in for 2 summers. So I went ahead and got a committee letter anyways, and then my PI wrote a separate letter of rec. that I sent to all my schools in addition to the committee letter. Seemed to work out just fine!

 

[loomis]

i decided not to use my committee letter since i would have had to use most of my letters from my undergrad (i've been out many years). i wrote a letter to all the med schools i applied to...no places i interviewed at ever raised up questions about why i didn't use a committe letter. hope this info helps!

 

[Samus Aran]

How many supplementary LOR's can you send in? The committee won't accept either LOR from the 2 PI's I worked for, even though one of them was also my stats professor, and the committee wants 4 LOR's from professors at my university, giving me a total of 6 LOR's! Will that be too much?

I'm way too worried about this I know

 

[snapdad]

I don't think six would be too many. I had five that were sent in the package with the committee letter (making six), plus a couple more from grad school. I talked to the admissions director at one of the schools I was sending grad letters to and they said sending more letters was fine, just to let them know so they knew to look for them.

If you're worried about it, maybe it would be good to call the admissions offices of the schools you're applying to and ask them if it would be ok. I've always found admissions people to be very helpful and approachable about that kind of thing.

 

[bor0101]

Hi, i dont even know if my school has a premed committee or anything "premed". I looked at various dept websites, and premed not mentioned anywhere. So what is up?

 

[snapdad]

Your school might not have one...not all schools do. Might try asking around in the biology or chemistry departments...they'd probably know.

 

[Samus Aran]

Thanks to everyone for the advice!

 

[OnMyWayThere]

what is this PI you guys are referring you?

 

[snapdad]

PI = principal investigator in a lab

 

[Samus Aran]

PI = principal investigator (AKA the head of the research project or the head person in the lab)

 

[snapdad]

Pretty much, the PI is the person in charge of the lab who gets his/her name at the top of most of the publications the lab generates. Usually the lab consists of a PI, other PhDs under the PI (e.g., postdocs), and then lab techs, research assistants, student helpers, etc.

 

[Spitting Camel]

Misty,

If you have a premed commitee, you are required to use it for some schools. BU, for instance, has you write the reason why you are not using it. Other schools just say that you must use it. Do what the others have said and send it in as a supplement. Don't take the chance because it could look fishy.