When Do I Need My LOR's Ready?

[willthatsall]

If I turn in the AMCAS first possible date and start getting secondaries, when do I need my LOR's to be sent? Are they supposed to be sent along with the secondary? I will be out of town during the summer, so I won't be in the city where most of my LOR's are being sent from. Do I need to give them addressed/stamped envelopes prior to leaving for the summer if I want them to send the LOR during the summer? And just tell them when I need them to send the letter to a school? This would mean that I would give them an envelope for every school I apply to, before I know if I will get a secondary or not. I'm not really sure of what the etiquette is for this. Anyone?

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[Haybrant]

If I turn in the AMCAS first possible date and start getting secondaries, when do I need my LOR's to be sent? Are they supposed to be sent along with the secondary? I will be out of town during the summer, so I won't be in the city where most of my LOR's are being sent from. Do I need to give them addressed/stamped envelopes prior to leaving for the summer if I want them to send the LOR during the summer? And just tell them when I need them to send the letter to a school? This would mean that I would give them an envelope for every school I apply to, before I know if I will get a secondary or not. I'm not really sure of what the etiquette is for this. Anyone?

some schools dont allow you to turn them in before offering a secondary; i think they will simply toss them if you do so follow the guidelines for each school.
Also, you may already have done it, but make sure you tell your letter writers you need it at least a month before you actually do; you dont want to get behind in the game just b.c of a lor; also, i can tell you from experience, make sure to have a backup letter or two just in case!

 

[Crete]

If I turn in the AMCAS first possible date and start getting secondaries, when do I need my LOR's to be sent? Are they supposed to be sent along with the secondary? I will be out of town during the summer, so I won't be in the city where most of my LOR's are being sent from. Do I need to give them addressed/stamped envelopes prior to leaving for the summer if I want them to send the LOR during the summer? And just tell them when I need them to send the letter to a school? This would mean that I would give them an envelope for every school I apply to, before I know if I will get a secondary or not. I'm not really sure of what the etiquette is for this. Anyone?

Your file is usually only considered for interview when everything is in, meaning secondaries and LORs. Some schools, like UCSF, destroy LORs if you haven't been offered a secondary. Others are more liberal. You should call the schools you're applying to and most will probably let you send them in June. For the rest, have a family member or friend handle it.

 

[Kazema]

Yeah, you'll probably be sending in secondaries around mid to late July and on, so try to get them all together by then.

 

[willthatsall]

I'm actually trying to get the LOR's sent as soon as possible. I want to be interviewing before October in as many places as possible because I play basketball and it will be very hard for me to travel after October/November. Is there a place I can look to find exactly how man letters I will need so I can have them ready before I get the secondary? I have a committee letter, one from my basketball coach, one from an economics professor, and one from a doctor I shadowed. I think I can have them all ready by June, but I am not allowed to have copies to send, right? I have to tell them to send them each time because I can't look at them? Can someone explain the process or send me somewhere to read about it? Sorry for being a pest, I'm trying to figure out the quickest, most efficient way to handle this. Is that enough LORs?

 

[Kazema]

A committee letter is actually all you need. Dunno how your committee was set up, but they did a composite letter based on my recommendations from professors and the PI for the research project I assisted in.

 

[Haybrant]

I'm actually trying to get the LOR's sent as soon as possible. I want to be interviewing before October in as many places as possible because I play basketball

cool; where do you play ball? and how have you had time to accumulate 1000+ posts on sdn as a bballer; you should get into the college sports hall of fame as the only 1000+ SDN posts college athlete

 

[willthatsall]

cool; where do you play ball? and how have you had time to accumulate 1000+ posts on sdn as a bballer; you should get into the college sports hall of fame as the only 1000+ SDN posts college athlete

Haha ... I was racking up like 30 post/day last summer while studying for the MCAT. My production drops off a lot during the season. I play at Mercer University, a small DI school in Georgia.

Anyway, my committee letter isn't enough because they don't actually make a composite of other LOR's, they just have a committee meeting to talk about the applicant and then write a letter. Now that I think about it, the composite letter would be a much better idea, but my committee didn't think of that. So I need other people to write letters, I just don't have any way to consolidate the letters and make sure they are send on time.

 

[lorelei]

I take it your school doesn't have a service that will copy and send out your letters as needed. My school's career center did this and it worked well because I'd mail them a list of addresses and a check ($5/school) every time I needed a batch sent out.

What I would think you could do is have your letter writers give you say 15 copies, sealed into individual envelopes, so that you can take care of addressing and stamping them as needed but they're pre-sealed and thus not available to you. However, I don't know for sure if this is allowed, and you'd need to have the willpower to not read them!

 

[jsm6j]

www.interfolio.com

You have your recommenders send the letter to them, they scan it into their system and save it, and then you pay a nominal fee to have letters sent to schools. You can specify when and where each letter will go, and also which letters to send to schools.

It worked well for me and and was just one less thing to worry about.

I think it's like 5 bucks to have a packet of letters sent to a school, which is insignificant in the overall cost of this lovely process.

 

[willthatsall]

Thanks, I will look into my school's career center and if they don't do it, interfolio looks to be what I need.

 

[Kazema]

I think in general you'll want at least 2 science profs write you recommendations and 1 non-science rec. Having at least 5 letters is a good target, as far as an upper limit I've heard 7 or so. You can always send additional letters during the process (like if you get on waitlists) if you end up with more along the way.