Should you take classes just for a letter of recommendation? Today, I have a great question about letters of recommendation.
Questions answered here on the podcast are taken directly from the Nontrad Premed Forum over at premedforums.com. Please go ahead and register for an account, ask your question, and have fun with the community.
And if you haven’t yet, go check out mappd.com. It’s the new technology platform that I’m building with my partner Rachel Grubbs who has almost 20 years of experience in the test preparation premed world. And together, we are building a platform that will hopefully change the premed landscape, especially for nontraditional students. This is not an application tool. This is not a tracking tool. This is a guide to help guide you on your journey to medical school.
Also, please be sure to check out all our other podcasts on Meded Media as we try to bring you as many resources as you need on this journey.
Listen to this podcast episode with the player above, or keep reading for the highlights and takeaway points.
“Hello I am new to the forum so hopefully this question hasn’t been asked before. I graduated in 2017, took some time off, and am now preparing to apply to the 2021 cycle!
I have kept in touch with one science professor but I don’t feel like I have a strong enough relationship with any other science or non-science professors. I do, however, have great letters from the managers where I worked the last two years but I know different schools have different requirements for LOR’s.
My BPCM/sGPA by year was 3.2 > 3.4 > 3.7 > 3.88 (cumulative 3.58) and my overall was 3.5 > 3.6 > 3.8 > 3.9 (cumulative 3.72).
Although I am not super concerned about my grades thanks to the upward trend, should I consider taking postbac classes to give my GPA a little boost and make more recent relationships with professors who could write me a more personal Letter of Rec?
Also if the classes I am taking are not prereqs, is it okay to take them at a community college?
Thank you so much! I love the podcast!”
A lot of nontraditional students are stuck in this world whether you planned on taking gap years, or you’re a super nontrad who’s career-changing and coming in after being out for many years.
The general rule of thumb after talking to lots of students and lots of deans and directors of admissions is that there seems to be this five-year window.
That if you’ve been out of school more than five years, a lot of schools will potentially give you a pass on their LOR requirements. And if it’s less than five years, you’re going to need whatever those required LOR’s are.
The most straightforward thing to do is go directly to the medical schools and tell them that you’ve been at the school for these number of years. But you have friends or relationships with your volunteer supervisor or work supervisor. Then ask if you can replace the required science letter with a letter from your work supervisor or your volunteer supervisor, and see what the school says.
When you’re going through this process, and you have your grades in and you have your activities in. We could see that you’ve marked a specific professor as a potential writer for your letter of recommendation. We can see the schools that you’re applying to or you want to apply to. Then we would also know that they are pretty lenient with their letters of recommendation. And here’s what they have told us. That’s the kind of amazing data that we are building into, hopefully, at some point in Mappd.
Now, when Mappd comes out, it won’t have all that data, It’s going to take a while to build up all of that data. But that’s the kind of stuff that you can look forward to with Mappd.
Now, if the school won’t allow you to replace your LORs from your professors with LORs from your work supervisor, then either can’t apply to that school, or you go back to school to get those letters of recommendations that they require.
Try to reach back out to that professor and tell them what you’ve been up to and the reason you’re contacting them is if you could possibly get a strong LOR from them. Then you can rekindle those relationships as well. This is probably better than spending money to take a class.
If you apply to the average of 15-17, whatever those schools are, depending on the application service, then that’s a lot of schools that you’re going to have to reach out to.
Now, you have to understand that those schools are responding to a ton of phone callsand emails. Which is why hopefully, with Mappd, they’ll be friendly to us and give us that information. So they don’t have to continue to answer all those questions.
In terms of taking prereqs at a community college with that GPA, there typically won’t be any issue.
“If you really struggled in undergrad, and now you go back to community college and you do well, there's going to be a question.”Click To TweetWhere community college comes into play is when you really struggled in underground then you go back to community college and you do well. The question is, did you escape to community college because you thought you were going to do better?
Therefore, you’re proving our point that community college is easier, or did you not do well in a four-year university because you had other things going on? And that’s all fixed now. And you fixed your study habits and now you’re succeeding because you’re a better student at community college with the same level of difficulty as the classes at the university are.
That’s the dilemma that medical schools are in is how do I know why exactly you’re taking classes at community college.
So if you do well at community college and you’ve proven yourself academically, be ready to answer that question of why did you take these classes at community college? Just be ready with that in your interview trail.
As you go through that process, check out Episode 330 of The Premed Years Podcast where I did talk to a student who did the majority, if not all, of his prereqs classes at a community college because he worked full-time as a nontraditional student. And that’s just what fit with his schedule as a working father. He had plenty of interviews and multiple acceptances. But at almost every interview, he had to answer that question of why he went to a community college.
PMY 330: Getting into Med School After Community College Postbac
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Just wanted to share my wonderful news! I received my first medical school acceptance! Thank you for all that you do for us Application Academy!!!
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I wanted to once again express my heartfelt gratitude for your help in providing feedback during my secondary applications. Your guidance has been instrumental in my journey.
Just wanted to share my wonderful news! I received my first medical school acceptance! Thank you for all that you do for us Application Academy!!!
I am excited to tell you that I just got my third interview invite from XXXXX today! I can’t believe it. I didn’t even know if I was good enough to get one, let alone three – by mid-September. Thank you so much for all of your help and support up to this point; I would not be in this position without it!!
I wanted to thank you for helping me prepare for my XXXXX interview. Even in a 30-minute advising session, I learned so much from you. Thank you for believing in me, and here’s to another potential success story from one of your advisees!
I just received an acceptance with XXXXX! This is so exciting and such a huge relief and so nice to have one of our top choice schools! I also received an interview with XXXXX which brings the total up to 20 interviews! Thank so much, none of this would have been possible without you!
I just received my admission to XXXXX! This is unreal and almost feels like I am dreaming. I want to thank you for all of your help with my application. I cannot overstate how influential your guidance and insight have been with this result and I am eternally grateful for your support!
IM SO HAPPY!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR HELP, IM INDEBTED TO YOU! Truly, thank you so much for all your help. Thank you doesnt do enough.
I want to take a few moments and thank you for all of your very instructive, kind and consistent feedback and support through my applications and it is your wishes, feedback, and most importantly your blessings that have landed me the acceptance!
I got into XXXXX this morning!!!! It still has not hit me that I will be a doctor now!! Thank you for all your help, your words and motivation have brought me to this point.
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