Letters of recommendation

Nontraditional Premed Discussion
1

Hello everyone, and thanks in advance for your responses.
I completed my science classes more than 20+ years ago, and now considering applying to DO schools.
Most of my science professors have either retired or do not teach at the school anymore.
Does anyone know of any DO schools or even MD schools that will accept letters of recommendation from Physicians in lieu of from science professors? If none, would it be advisable to enroll in school to do two or more science classes in order to get letters of recommendation from Professors?
Thanks a lot,
aspiring Physician.

2

I ran into the same problem. I ended up emailing the admission offices of schools I was interested in applying to in order to see if they would accept letters in lieu of their requirements given my situation. I ended up only having one school say no to my request for a “waiver” for my LORs. I ended up submitting 2 from work supervisors and 1 from a physician I shadowed. I wouldn’t take classes just to get LORs if you can get by with not doing that…

I applied to 15 MD schools (mostly private) and 1 DO school with my 3 non-academic LORs.

3

Thanks @Kennymac.
I did write to a few and so far only Edward Via School of Osteopathic medicine( Carolinas campus) will accept LOR from Physicians only in lieu of science professors. If you don’t mind, please could you post the names of the schools you wrote to, that accepted LOR’s from Physicians.
Thanks immensely,
Evelyn.

4

Keeping in mind that I submitted AMCAS in 2013, things may be drastically different. The list below are the schools I applied to, but I can’t really tell you which ones I emailed for a “waiver” or which ones didn’t specify what types of letters they wanted. I submitted in September as well, which may or may not have played a factor in what interviews I got.

Albany Medical college
Case Western
Georgetown (interviewed)
Hofstra (interviewed)
Michigan State
NYMC (interviewed)
Rush
Tufts
Arizona-Tucson (interview waitlist, not interviewed)
Cincinatti
Colorado (interviewed)
Michigan
Univ of Washington
VCU (interview waitlist, not interviewed)
Wake Forest (interviewed)
Brown
Wright State
Campbell (interviewed)

5

Thanks a lot!
Evelyn.