I received a LoR from a professor I know wrote me two great letters in the past for different programs. His letter was the best I've gotten. However, it seems like he waited until the last minute for my med school letter as he just showed it to me today and it's relatively badly written with 1 or 2 glaring errors(including repeating a line at the end). English is his second language (he's German), so none of his writing would ever be called poetic, but there were a couple of things that just made me cringe. The problem is the letter is already submitted to AMCAS. What are my options at this point? I'm sure if I corrected the mistakes he would resubmit it, but how does AMCAS handle something like that? If I just have to deal with it, what is the worst-case scenario? How much emphasis would they put on one badly written letter out of four?
Badly written LoR
- Thread starter AlphaKeto
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After rereading it, I recognize that most of the letter is acceptably written, but the last paragraph is obviously rushed, and I personally know that he took alot of the last paragraph from an older letter he wrote me. I'm also regretting giving him my CV because he put things like me getting an OSHA card on there...lol all that is, is a glorified background check. Lol I guess he wouldn't be German if he wasn't overdoing it.
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No one will hold you responsible for your recommender's poor English -- especially if it's clear that he's ESL.
How strong were his positive sentiments?
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In general, I don't think it is a good idea for you to even try and say anything about it. One of the major benefits of letters of recommendation is that, most of the time, the applicant waives their right to see the letter. This tells medical schools (and anyone who may be reading any "waived" letter) that the content is totally genuine. As soon as that breaks down, the letters are regarded as less valuable and are listened to less. I don't know whether you officially waived your right to see this letter, but if you didn't, don't make it obvious that you know what it says. If it is a positive letter, you want them to take the comments seriously.
