8 LORs too much?

[zogoto]

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I have 8 LORs:

--2 Science Profs (required)
--1 Non-science prof (required)
--PI from lab I worked in for 1.5 years
--PI from lab I worked in for a different 1.5 years, plus had pubs in, plus work with him on a big EC
--Coordinator for another big EC which is a big leadership role for me
--Doctor that I have shadowed very extensively, including talking to patients on my own while he was with a different patient, plus volunteered with him
--Committee letter

My committee adviser said to just send all of them and they'll put in the committee letter that "even though there's a lot of letters in here, they're all exceptional, blah blah." But can having this many hurt? If so, where could I cut? I can't imagine taking any of them out since they each describe a different dimension of my application.

 

[Slowpoke]

damn I wish I was in your shoes. good stuff!

 

[rockaction]

Goodness. That's a lot. I can't imagine they'd be thrilled about reading them all. Doesn't the committee letter count for the 2 science/1 non-science professor deal?

Other than that, I'd say only do 2-3 on top of the committee letter. Just pick the ones you think will cover the most ground. You don't want your LORs all saying the same thing.

 

[AdemTD]

AMCAS will take up to 10, so I'd have all of them submit a letter to AMCAS and then you can designate which letters go to which schools. Of course no school would want to receive 8 letters, but that's the beauty of being able to designate specific letters to specific schools. You could even have one or two of your recommenders tailor a letter specifically to your top choice school and just have their letter sent to that school. So many possibilities here, and that's awesome that you can get that many of them!!

 

[nick_carraway]

FWIW, I consider that 7 letters since the committee letter is more of a cover letter.

Additionally, what do you mean by your professor letters being required? Are they required for your committee because they aren't required for med schools since your committee letter waives the requirements of any individual school.

Regardless, 7 letters is fine if they're all great. To be honest, though, I had 7 until today and then took out two.

 

[TraderDoc]

8 is too much as the MAX letters at most schools is 5 or 6. If you have a comittee letter, then that letter will be heavily looked at while others will be supplemental I think. But I would stick to 6 max, or one committe letter and two additional letters that I think are the best ones.

 

[zogoto]

Additionally, what do you mean by your professor letters being required? Are they required for your committee because they aren't required for med schools since your committee letter waives the requirements of any individual school.

At our school, the committee letter is a summary of the other letters, but they say to not send any letters to the committee that are not getting sent to all the schools since the committee letter quotes letters, and I guess schools like to actually look at the letter that the quotes come from?

It's also hard to say what the "best" ones are because they are all different. That's like asking if clinical experience (shadowing letter) is more important than leadership (EC letter). Both are important and you can't get in with just one.

 

[bozz]

Comeon, send all 8. You can listen to us say.. "hmmm 5 is a lot... hmmm 7 is fine" etc.. etc... but we're premeds.

Listen to your gut... nobody's going to reject you for having 8 letters. Why waste a great opportunity?

 

[zogoto]

Bump...so I need to decide this pretty soon...any more ideas? Could it actually HURT to have 8? If they say max 6 and I send 8, couldn't they just read the first 6? I'd be fine with that.

 

[Lukkie]

11 is too much

 

[BlueElmo]

Anything above 5 is too much.

 

[zogoto]

Exactly! As someone who has applied once, the requirement is not 2 sci, 1 non sci, and then a committee letter. It is a COMMITTEE LETTER OR

OR 3 individual letters with some schools expecting 2 additional character letters or a peer letter in some cases like at UF.

Some schools will question why you didn't use a committee letter if you had a committee letter service at your school and that could look bad. So if the committee letter is strong then have that sent with the 2-3 character letters.

To clarify, the way my school does it is that you send your letters (in my case, maybe 7) to the school service, which sends it to your adviser (we don't have committees, but just premed advisers). Your adviser writes a summary letter, and all of the letters (in my case, 8) are sent by my school to individual schools (or now, to AMCAS). My school doesn't say it's ok to not send individual letters if you have a summary letter.

So when people say "anything more than 5 is too many" do you mean 5 individual letters (no committee/summary letter), or do you mean 5 TOTAL (I have 7 individual + 1 summary letter). I have talked to some schools, and they say that if you have a packet of letters with a committee letter, it all counts as 1.

 

[LAman10]

Relax dude. upload them all to AMCAS. Don't send 6 to any one school, but pick and choose which letters to send to each school. Prioritize and cater them to each school's interests.

 

[Wheee]

I'm interested to hear you all say that a committee letter is supposed to be a summary of your other letters. At my school, we fill out an application for a committee letter with GPA/Classes/a bunch of essays. Then the committee goes over it, assigns the committee person who knows you best to write your letter, and then they all (3 people, maybe 4) look over the letter and all co-sign it.

Hmm...well, people have gotten in to med school from my uni so it must not be completely wrong, just different...

 

[Non-TradTulsa]

My committee adviser said to just send all of them and they'll put in the committee letter that "even though there's a lot of letters in here, they're all exceptional, blah blah." But can having this many hurt? If so, where could I cut? I can't imagine taking any of them out since they each describe a different dimension of my application.

I know it's painful to discard letters that you suspect are good (if you've seen a letter and have not waived your right to see it, throw it out first - schools place very little weight on letters where you haven't waived), but 8 plus committee letter is way over the top. Most schools want 2-3 letters. If you call them, most will tell you that they welcome more - but 5 is the absolute max at some schools, 6 at others. Never go over a total of six, including committee letter. I know you want to showplace your accomplishments, but you will end-up generating resentment in someone who just doesn't have time to look at a total of 9 letters - and you'll pay for that resentment. Bad strategy.

 

[littlealex]

Yes. 5 is good, 6 is a bit much. 8? No one will read them all.

 

[scarletgirl777]

Relax dude. upload them all to AMCAS. Don't send 6 to any one school, but pick and choose which letters to send to each school. Prioritize and cater them to each school's interests.

People with committee letters often don't have a choice about what they can and can't upload. The undergraduate school is going to upload one complete packet of letters ONLY, very often. Imagine the chaos if they did otherwise.

 

[zogoto]

People with committee letters often don't have a choice about what they can and can't upload. The undergraduate school is going to upload one complete packet of letters ONLY, very often. Imagine the chaos if they did otherwise.

Yeah I have to tell my undergrad school which letters to put into my committee letter packet, and that packet will go everywhere.

I called every school that I'm applying to today, and the people I talked to all said that 7 independent letters + 1 committee/summary letter is absolutely fine and that "it cannot hurt you at all." Only 1 school which I'm probably not even applying to (Duke) said that "4 is the absolute limit, and anything more shows that you can't follow directions." But I have a feeling that the people I talked to on the phone are not the people who read the applications, so I took it all with a grain of salt...

So if I had to cut just one out of these, which would be the best bet:

--PI from lab I worked in for 1.5 years (not having this would seem strange...)
--PI from lab I worked in for a different 1.5 years, plus had pubs in, plus work with him on a big EC (not having this would also be strange...)
--Coordinator for another big EC which is a big leadership role for me (leadership is huge, especially for my top 2-3 schools...)
--Doctor that I have shadowed very extensively, including talking to patients on my own while he was with a different patient, plus volunteered with him (this is a unique clinical letter, and the only thing on my application besides the PS that has any heartfelt clinical stuff in it)

 

[Non-TradTulsa]

Goodness, I haven't been around the pre-allo threads in a long time. I forget how easily one's time can be wasted. Zogoto, you asked for our advice - and I think most people told you the long-established rule, "no more than 6" (which a lot of admissions committee members have heard of, I guarantee you, regardless of what someone in the admissions office said). You called your schools and you've decided on 7 - so you made your own decision and overruled the advice we gave.

You're not really planning on taking our advice on which letter to get rid of, either, are you?

 

[zogoto]

Goodness, I haven't been around the pre-allo threads in a long time. I forget how easily one's time can be wasted. Zogoto, you asked for our advice - and I think most people told you the long-established rule, "no more than 6" (which a lot of admissions committee members have heard of, I guarantee you, regardless of what someone in the admissions office said). You called your schools and you've decided on 7 - so you made your own decision and overruled the advice we gave.

You're not really planning on taking our advice on which letter to get rid of, either, are you?

I'm actually definitely going to remove one of my last 2 letters (adviser for club I was in or shadowing)...Just need to decide which.

 

[Non-TradTulsa]

I'm actually definitely going to remove one of my last 2 letters (adviser for club I was in or shadowing)...Just need to decide which.

My apologies. My post was a bit unkind.

 

[scarletgirl777]

Yeah I have to tell my undergrad school which letters to put into my committee letter packet, and that packet will go everywhere.

I called every school that I'm applying to today, and the people I talked to all said that 7 independent letters + 1 committee/summary letter is absolutely fine and that "it cannot hurt you at all." Only 1 school which I'm probably not even applying to (Duke) said that "4 is the absolute limit, and anything more shows that you can't follow directions." But I have a feeling that the people I talked to on the phone are not the people who read the applications, so I took it all with a grain of salt...

So if I had to cut just one out of these, which would be the best bet:

--PI from lab I worked in for 1.5 years (not having this would seem strange...)
--PI from lab I worked in for a different 1.5 years, plus had pubs in, plus work with him on a big EC (not having this would also be strange...)
--Coordinator for another big EC which is a big leadership role for me (leadership is huge, especially for my top 2-3 schools...)
--Doctor that I have shadowed very extensively, including talking to patients on my own while he was with a different patient, plus volunteered with him (this is a unique clinical letter, and the only thing on my application besides the PS that has any heartfelt clinical stuff in it)

Leadership and clinical experience are huge, and having a letter to document them is great, but that still doesn't make it necessary. Which experience involved the least work over the shortest amount of time? I'd cut the letter associated with that. Your committee letter should hopefully speak to your ECs and background to some extent, or to whatever they gleaned from an interview, so it's not like this information will go unnoticed.

 

[witness23]

this is a committee packet right?


most med schools respect packets. if it was individual letters however, i think there might be limits.

 

[scarletgirl777]

this is a committee packet right?


most med schools respect packets. if it was individual letters however, i think there might be limits.

Oh that's a good point--I'd forgotten about that. But anyway, the reason a lot of schools have these limits is because with so many letters, it's hard to tell what to focus on, and any kind of singular praise gets deemphasized.

 

[zogoto]

this is a committee packet right?


most med schools respect packets. if it was individual letters however, i think there might be limits.

What do you mean med schools respect packets?

The way it works at my school is that I pick who to ask for LORs (can be anybody), and they all submit to the careers center. The careers center sends all the LORs to my premed adviser, who writes a "summary" letter of my whole application. The premed adviser sends his LOR back to the careers center, and my school sends the entire packet (adviser + other letters) to all the schools.

 

[not respect]

For MD/PhD, which it seems like you are a good candidate for, that many letters is just fine!

 

[akademix]

i was wondering if yall could help me out.

my situation:

i have a committee letter plus 6 letters....my school, allows you to choose up to 6 individuals to put in your packet. is this overkill? is this considered 7 letters because of the committee letter? We also cant control how many letters are sent to each individual med school because my school's career services center just sends out the entire packet (6 letters plus 1 committee letter in my case) to all the med schools to which one applies.... im applying majority MD-PhD, but im also applying to some MD only.
can someone shed some light on this please. thanks

Akademix Esq.

 

[akademix]

bump like what happens when you dont shave your neck right

 

[zogoto]

Yeah I have to tell my undergrad school which letters to put into my committee letter packet, and that packet will go everywhere.

I called every school that I'm applying to today, and the people I talked to all said that 7 independent letters + 1 committee/summary letter is absolutely fine and that "it cannot hurt you at all." Only 1 school which I'm probably not even applying to (Duke) said that "4 is the absolute limit, and anything more shows that you can't follow directions." But I have a feeling that the people I talked to on the phone are not the people who read the applications, so I took it all with a grain of salt...

So if I had to cut just one out of these, which would be the best bet:

--PI from lab I worked in for a different 1.5 years, plus had pubs in, plus work with him on a big EC (not having this would also be strange...)
--Coordinator for another big EC which is a big leadership role for me (leadership is huge, especially for my top 2-3 schools...)
--Doctor that I have shadowed very extensively, including talking to patients on my own while he was with a different patient, plus volunteered with him (this is a unique clinical letter, and the only thing on my application besides the PS that has any heartfelt clinical stuff in it)

Any more input on which to cut out of these? I'm specifically looking at the last two.