Two of my professors gave me copies of the letters they wrote after submitting them. A third professor did not. A friend told me that if they are happy to write it, it is standard etiquette to provide it even with rights waived. Did anyone else have this experience? He said I should be concerned about the letter if a copy was not offered.
Copy of LOR
- Thread starter BeMD13
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I never asked for or got a copy of any of my LORs.
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I've seen several of my letters.
It's not unusual either way. I saw more of mine when I was in graduate school.
It's not unusual either way. I saw more of mine when I was in graduate school.
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I never saw any of my letters. I don't think it is standard to get a copy of a letter when you waive your right to see it. I had a committee letter, so the committee members did see all my letters and one member told me they were all very good.
Does anyone know what you do if you don't have a committee to see your letters? I've heard you can find volunteer advisors but I don't know if they screen letters like a committee or just tell you classes that you need. I'm post-bac and I looked up the classes I need on my own. I'm pretty much done with that part.
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Your friend is laughably mistaken. Just think about this for a second, please. You've been asked to write a LOR. You want to be honest. Therefore, the requestor's good and bad points should be noted. Most requestors never have bad points that get mentioned in LORs.
A friend told me that if they are happy to write it, it is standard etiquette to provide it even with rights waived. Did anyone else have this experience? He said I should be concerned about the letter if a copy was not offered.
A friend told me that if they are happy to write it, it is standard etiquette to provide it even with rights waived. Did anyone else have this experience? He said I should be concerned about the letter if a copy was not offered.
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It is not standard to see one's LOR's.
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It's really variable. One of my recommender's for grad school said she'd send me a copy of mine just in case I got asked about something she mentioned in an interview. It's more common that you don't see them since you waive your right to see them so the recommender feels comfortable being honest about their evaluation of you. I wouldn't worry about it.
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I've been thinking... is your friend in graduate school? Since the culture is actually different than pre-med, and it isn't unusual to see the letters, it might be that is where the difference comes up.
Like most of my letters were from faculty at my graduate school thus while I never asked for the letters, I got to see a copy of many of them before they were mailed off.
Like most of my letters were from faculty at my graduate school thus while I never asked for the letters, I got to see a copy of many of them before they were mailed off.
This thread raises some interesting questions for med school applicants. It is considered "standard" that applicants "waive their rights" to see copies of their LOR's, and presumably that is to assure the med schools that the LOR writers provide them with candid and truthful assessments of the applicants.
That may be true to a degree, but frankly I'd be wary of waiving my right to see a copy of any LOR I asked someone to write for me. And I'll tell you why I feel that way.
I applied to med school over 30 years ago and my UG school has a pre-med committee that provided a composite pre-med committee LOR. I asked several of my UG science profs to write LOR's to be put into this committee letter. I prefaced my requests to write a "good supportive" letter and told them that if they couldn't do that I'd rather not have them write a letter for me. Five profs agreed to write letters, and they were all in basic science courses (bio and chem) for which I'd gotten grades ranging from A- to A+. My UG GPA was 3.8 and my MCAT was 12/12/13, so I figured I ought to be a competitive applicant.
Well, my first round application led to 6 interviews and no acceptance. At one of my interviews an interviewer made an offhand comment about my LOR...
Sometime later I happened to get hold of a copy of the committee LOR... All of my profs, save one, wrote very good supportive letters. One of them, however, wrote a rather nasty and derogatory letter. He did give me a solid A (for O-Chem). Thinking back on that course, I realized that I'd argued with him in class about the subject matter, and apparently it must have rubbed hum the wrong way. The only thing I can imagine is that he really didn't like me. He had to give me an A because of my exam scores, but I guess that he must have felt it was his duty to screw me out of getting into med school. For all I know, he might have been a frustrated med school applicant himself.
I chose to go to Italy for two years, and came back to the US to reapply to US schools. But before I did that I went back to see my old pre-med advisor. I exercised my right to remove letters from my committee letter before they sent it out again. I told him that I wanted Prof. X's letter taken out. He looked over the original letter and said nothing except "Good choice!"
On the next round I applied to just 5 schools, got interviews for 4, got accepted at 3, and enrolled in my first choice school.
My point is that LOR's are a serious issue for the med school applicant, and even if you ask your Prof's to write a "good letter," there's always the possibility that some alpha-hotel can screw you over.
That may be true to a degree, but frankly I'd be wary of waiving my right to see a copy of any LOR I asked someone to write for me. And I'll tell you why I feel that way.
I applied to med school over 30 years ago and my UG school has a pre-med committee that provided a composite pre-med committee LOR. I asked several of my UG science profs to write LOR's to be put into this committee letter. I prefaced my requests to write a "good supportive" letter and told them that if they couldn't do that I'd rather not have them write a letter for me. Five profs agreed to write letters, and they were all in basic science courses (bio and chem) for which I'd gotten grades ranging from A- to A+. My UG GPA was 3.8 and my MCAT was 12/12/13, so I figured I ought to be a competitive applicant.
Well, my first round application led to 6 interviews and no acceptance. At one of my interviews an interviewer made an offhand comment about my LOR...
Sometime later I happened to get hold of a copy of the committee LOR... All of my profs, save one, wrote very good supportive letters. One of them, however, wrote a rather nasty and derogatory letter. He did give me a solid A (for O-Chem). Thinking back on that course, I realized that I'd argued with him in class about the subject matter, and apparently it must have rubbed hum the wrong way. The only thing I can imagine is that he really didn't like me. He had to give me an A because of my exam scores, but I guess that he must have felt it was his duty to screw me out of getting into med school. For all I know, he might have been a frustrated med school applicant himself.
I chose to go to Italy for two years, and came back to the US to reapply to US schools. But before I did that I went back to see my old pre-med advisor. I exercised my right to remove letters from my committee letter before they sent it out again. I told him that I wanted Prof. X's letter taken out. He looked over the original letter and said nothing except "Good choice!"
On the next round I applied to just 5 schools, got interviews for 4, got accepted at 3, and enrolled in my first choice school.
My point is that LOR's are a serious issue for the med school applicant, and even if you ask your Prof's to write a "good letter," there's always the possibility that some alpha-hotel can screw you over.
