AMCAS Letter Writer App, Interfolio, or Vitualeval?

[molarseeker]

I am very confused about how these are used. If I asked the doctor I am shadowing for a letter and they agreed, how would I go about getting it? Do they have to send it to one of these companies? Which one is the best? I am applying to both MD and DO schools.

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[MedPR]

I am very confused about how these are used. If I asked the doctor I am shadowing for a letter and they agreed, how would I go about getting it? Do they have to send it to one of these companies? Which one is the best? I am applying to both MD and DO schools.

I applied to both and I asked all my writers to submit to AMCAS and Interfolio. AACOMAS doesn't handle letters like AMCAS does.

 

[molarseeker]

I applied to both and I asked all my writers to submit to AMCAS and Interfolio. AACOMAS doesn't handle letters like AMCAS does.

What is the difference in the way they handle the letters? And how does my doctor "submit to Interfolio.? Do I need to make an account before hand?

 

[MedPR]

What is the difference in the way they handle the letters? And how does my doctor "submit to Interfolio.? Do I need to make an account before hand?

AMCAS is free, Interfolio I think charges you $6 per 10 pages per school or something like that. It's relatively cheap.


Yup, you make an account (it's free) and then you make letter request forms just like you do in AMCAS. You then print or email the form for each writer (the forms are individualized) and the writer just follows the directions to submit.

 

[molarseeker]

Okay. So when they submit the letter, it just goes to my account or something and sits there? If he was to submit to interfolio, I could say I want letter A to go to school 1 And letter B to school 2. Etc?

 

[MedPR]

Okay. So when they submit the letter, it just goes to my account or something and sits there? If he was to submit to interfolio, I could say I want letter A to go to school 1 And letter B to school 2. Etc?

Yup. Interfolio just holds all the letters for you and you tell them where to send each letter. You can send as many or as few at a time and they send you email confirmations that your letter(s) have been sent.

Edit: Oh and if for some reason you think the letters weren't delivered even though you paid already, you can email them and they'll check the status. If the letters aren't marked as received by the school, Interfolio will resend for free. The best part about Interfolio (I'm sure VirtualEvals too) is that they will not delete letters like AMCAS will at the end of the cycle. Good if you end up having to reapply.

 

[molarseeker]

And it works for both md and do? What was your reason for doing AMCAS and interfolio?

 

[MedPR]

And it works for both md and do? What was your reason for doing AMCAS and interfolio?

AMCAS: Easier to do for MD. You just have your LORs sent to AMCAS, pick your schools, and AMCAS automatically sends LORs. Also it's free. I had 7 LORs and I just sent them all to every MD school I applied to (you can check a single box for each school on AMCAS to do this). Some MD schools might have had a "maximum" of <7, but I really didn't think to check and I didn't worry about it once I had already submitted.

Interfolio/VirtualEval: Best option for DO. Otherwise you'd probably need to request that your LOR writers submit to each school on their own.. Big hassle that would be.

Edit: I guess it's technically easier to just ask your writers to submit only to Interfolio, but then you have to pay even more to have your LORs sent. I don't think it is that much of an inconvenience for writers to do two simple electronic submissions, so I chose that route and saved some money.

 

[molarseeker]

However, if I had them send to interfolio, u could just send them from there to AMCAS correct?

 

[MedPR]

However, if I had them send to interfolio, u could just send them from there to AMCAS correct?

I don't see why not, but I don't know for certain that you can do that.

Edit: Truthfully I didn't put too much thought into this part of the process. I knew that AMCAS handled MD, but that AACOMAS didn't handle DO so I needed another option.

 

[kami333]

However, if I had them send to interfolio, u could just send them from there to AMCAS correct?

Yes you can, AMCAS letter service is one of the hardcoded options. Just need to put in your AMCAS ID. Yes it's an extra $6 but I did it so it was as simple as possible for my letter writers since I had to do most of it through email.

It's been a few years since I looked into it but you can't sign up for VirtualEval as an individual, your school's premed advisor has to do it for all the applicants from your school. I also didn't like VirtualEval because you couldn't specify only sending a subset of letters to certain schools, ie such as send letters A,B,C to school 1 and letters A, D, E, F to school 2 (theoretically you can but you have to wait until school 1 has downloaded your letter packet before you can set up a new packet). Whereas with Interfolio you didn't have to wait.