Letters of Recommendation?

WayOutWestMom
Wed, 03 Oct 2012 09:53:28 +0000

LORs are critically important. So is following instructions.

If you don’t send the minimum required number of LORs, your file will be marked “incomplete” and will never get reviewed. (And the outside of the MCAT + GPA first screening, anything else in your file won’t get looked at until it’s complete so no amount of outstanding other stuff is going to help you.)

As far as using your PI for LOR. One of the things a recommender is asked to address is your academic performance and how strong/weak it is in comparision to other students he/she has taught in their career. If your PI cannot address that (particularly if the PI is a research faculty and not teaching faculty and hasn’t taught undergrads in many years), then your LOR is not especially useful to the committee.

I personally would send 2 LOR from science profs you’ve had in class and supplement it with one from your PI (who knows you in different context than your classroom instructors have and whose LOR will address different issues than theirs will.)

P.S. The ‘magic’ number for LORs is typically 3, not 2. 2 from science profs, 1 from non-science profs.