Thank you letters: E-mail or Snail Mail?

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Gordon Sims

Gordon Sims

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Which mode of delivery is more appropriate? Obviously e-mail is cheaper and more convenient unless, of course, your letter ends up being filtered out of the PD's mail box by some junk mail filter. Snail mail is traditional yet more time consuming and slower.

Also, is it sufficient to send thank you letters to just the PD and program coordinator or should you also send them to any others you may have met with during the interview?

Your thoughts? (esp. from anyone involved in the interview process)
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I don't know what the general consensus is, but I'm planning on sending handwritten/personalized thank you letters (via snail mail) to all parties that I interview with... I hadn't considered sending a letter to the residency coordinator, but that's not a bad idea.

I'm interested to hear what others think as well.
 
This gets asked every year and the general consensus is that there is no general consensus.

Handwritten TY notes are clearly more formal than an email, but it's much easier to write (and to correctly address and forward) an email than a handwritten note. Some programs will collect all your correspondence into your file, others will round-file it. Some people send TY notes to everyone they met with, others just to the PD or chair. None of these options is wrong. I did a combination of the above for residency (and all email for fellowship) and matched #1 both times so I don't think it had any kind of effect on my application.

Your classmates and interview colleagues will do something in the range of a quick "Thanks Bro" email to professionally calligraphed notes on 24K gold-leafed 150# hand-made stationery (not kidding about this one...saw it with my own eyes). Fit your thank you notes somewhere in the broad middle there and you'll be fine.
 
Also, listen on interview day. I already had one PD outright say "please do not send thank yous we know you're happy to be here."

Thought that was pretty funny.
 
alwaysaangel said:
Also, listen on interview day. I already had one PD outright say "please do not send thank yous we know you're happy to be here."

Thought that was pretty funny.
Click to expand...

Yes, definitely do what you're told. I was on my required Derm rotation last winter and the Derm Program Director was checking her email in clinic and called the residents over and said, "Look at all this BullS___! Didn't I specifically tell them not to send this crap? Idiots!"

Totally made my day.
 
Gordon Sims said:
Which mode of delivery is more appropriate? Obviously e-mail is cheaper and more convenient unless, of course, your letter ends up being filtered out of the PD's mail box by some junk mail filter. Snail mail is traditional yet more time consuming and slower.

Also, is it sufficient to send thank you letters to just the PD and program coordinator or should you also send them to any others you may have met with during the interview?

Your thoughts? (esp. from anyone involved in the interview process)
Click to expand...

Some thoughts here, here, here, and here.

-AT.
 
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