ADVICE NEEDED: Send LOR before invitation to submit secondary?

[lisalisa]

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Regarding schools that screen, will it hurt my chances if my school mails my committee letter before I receive a secondary?

I did this with UMD, which sends secondaries to only 25% of out-of-state applicants. I received an application one week later.

Of course, I wouldn't do this when a school's website specifically says not to send LOR's before a secondary.

Any opinions/experiences?

 

[UCSBPre-Med]

Well I know that some schools will throw the letters away if they haven't specifically requested them by sending a secondary, but I don't know about all schools.

If I were you, I would just wait until I got the request for a secondary, but thats just my opinion.

 

[rae-chill]

off hand, do you know which schools will toss letters - i had my lors sent out to a handful of schools that i haven't got secondaries from, and now i'm getting worried... i can just imagine getting a fat envelope in the mail and getting all excited, only to find out it's my lors ripped up with an enclosed rejection note or something 🙁 oh the cruelty.

 

[UCLAMAN]

I think the UCs and Stanford toss your letters out if they did not request a secondary from you(not 100% sure though). To the OP, rather than blindly sending out letters to all the schools you have applied to perhaps it would be best to call each admissions office to find out their policies on receiving LORs before they send out secondaries? I'm sure they are much better sources of info regarding those policies than us SDNers...straight from the horses' mouths.

 

[DarkChild]

UCSF explicitly says that LORs will be destroyed if they are received before the school sends you its secondary.
Personally I think its B.S. I'm putting my foot down. UCSF has till monday to get back to me, I'm holding back on sending out 5 LORs just to hear from UCSF. So if I still havent heard word one from UCSF by monday - f'em I'll withdraw!! What do these schools think we can just keep running to our pre-med office every five seconds to get things send out?

 

[UCLAMAN]

...thankfully ucla has LOR service requests online...us bruins can do it from the comfort of our homes!

also..."f'em?" UCSF has an easy secondary. Just sign and date and send. no essays or anything. If you get a secondary form them thats pretty good since they screen pretty heavily. I don't think its worth "f-ing" them just because they are slow.

just my $0.02

 

[laviddee]

yeah assuming your'e not sending to ucs..
send em out early!!!

you get the request in b/c your ref letter center might be the bottleneck. They might take anywhere from 3-5 bus days processing-- but i've also heard horror stories on SDN where their letter center was so backed up that it took almost a month to get sent out.

Most schools have your file open from the AMCAS and they'll stick the LORS in there. Plus, most schools don't screen anyways--- so just send em out while you can.
Have as few bottlenecks as you can!

That's just my personal opinion for what it's worth.