Attempted to apply last year....

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jhrosado31

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But I never went through with it because I decided at the end to apply this year. However, I still have all my recommendation letters that were sent from that time. My question is, may I leave it as with the date of last year?

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But I never went through with it because I decided at the end to apply this year. However, I still have all my recommendation letters that were sent from that time. My question is, may I leave it as with the date of last year?

In my opinion, get the letters written again when you are ready to apply. A year old letter is a risk that I wouldn't wanna take. Good luck.
 
Nah. If you can easily get one of those letters updated by the professor, do it, but otherwise one year isn't an old letter.

Mine were 2-5 years old.
 
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Sure. I get get people with LORs dated from several years ago!


But I never went through with it because I decided at the end to apply this year. However, I still have all my recommendation letters that were sent from that time. My question is, may I leave it as with the date of last year?
 
I agree with the first poster; even though it may not be a problem, some schools do require that LORs be written within the past 12 months. If possible, just have them re print it with an updated date.
 
I agree with the first poster; even though it may not be a problem, some schools do require that LORs be written within the past 12 months. If possible, just have them re print it with an updated date.

What schools require your lors within 1 year? This sounds like sdn pre-med-propagated misinformation. 1 year is an incredibly short amount of time, and letters are best written when you're fresh in the author's memory, so I cannot imagine any school requiring you to bug a busy professor to re-date a letter.

I applied with letters up to 4 years old, applied to all of the DO schools at the time (5 yrs ago) and 30ish MD, and every DO school I applied to offered me an interview except 2 (which cited no DO letter as the reason), and I was admitted everywhere I interviewed. I had a decent response from MD programs given my GPA (like 7 ii and withdrew after 3 admissions)...so I can say from experience that you do not need new shiny letters for each cycle.

After a few years, I might consider redating, but at that point it might also be prudent to just get a lor reflecting your current merits. Wherever this "rule" comes from, I think the spirit of it is just that you need to have something relatively current...I think 1 year is relatively current.
 
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