Commitee letter

[sbarilla]

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Which schools require a commitee letter. While in my last year of school my Pre med advisor left and we got a new one. I have been out of school for almost 2 years, and after talking to the new Pre med advisor today, he thinks im better off with just a cover letter packet since my lors are very strong and we don't know each other well. What do you think?

 

[Ismet]

No med school requires a committee letter because not all undergraduate institutions provide the committee letter service. Some schools will require/prefer/recommend the committee letter if your undergrad provides it, but with a valid excuse, such as being a couple years out of school, that can be overlooked.

Just to be sure, check the requirements of the schools you're interested in (listed on their website) and if you're unsure of their stance, give their admissions office a call. It never hurts to call the source!

 

[Barcu]

Committee letters are strongly encouraged by almost any school. Usually if you don't get one, the school will ask why. If you have a valid reason, it really shouldn't be a problem, so I wouldn't sweat it. Being out of school for a bit is probably the number one reason why people don't get one, and I think most would consider it justified.

 

[TheShaker]

I had similar concerns as you a year ago so I contacted a bunch of schools and asked them. The results are in this thread and the schools in my MDApps are fine with it as well.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=931457

One note is to take their word with a grain of salt. Admissions offices can be liars.

 

[ShowandTell]

Didn't want to create a new thread so decided to bump this one. I'm applying during the next cycle and I recently found out that my school will not complete its committee letter until October of the application year. Would med schools take that as a valid reason to send individual letters instead? I have everything else ready and planned to submit a complete AMCAS application on the first day it opened, especially due to the fact that I believe I read that some schools accept people in October.

 

[Burla]

Mine didn't get mine out until mid-September. If I could do it again, I would not use my committee...I've only heard back from a few schools at this point but if I would have been complete in August (like my secondaries) I believe I would be in a different position right now.

However, to answer the above question, I was supposed to originally have my meeting in October so I told my schools that but they still wanted the committee letter since my undergrad had a committee. Take that for what its worth. I feel your pain. These committees who don't understand the process are hurting a lot of us

 

[ShowandTell]

Ah, so no choice really. This is taking a big leap, but does there exist a chart or some proven statistics that show a lower chance of acceptance based off AMCAS completion date? If I could get something like that and show it to the pre-med committee heads, I think it could potentially change their tune.

Also, if you're comfortable sharing, have any of your hear-backs from the school been interview invites?

 

[Burla]

There is actually a chart of that floating around sdn somewhere. I tried finding it but failed...maybe someone else could post it with better searching skills

 

[MrTaco92]

Didn't want to create a new thread so decided to bump this one. I'm applying during the next cycle and I recently found out that my school will not complete its committee letter until October of the application year. Would med schools take that as a valid reason to send individual letters instead? I have everything else ready and planned to submit a complete AMCAS application on the first day it opened, especially due to the fact that I believe I read that some schools accept people in October.

I'm wondering the same thing. My advisor just informed me that my committee evaluation won't be ready until August at the earliest, and sometimes their evaluations aren't sent out until September. Will this be detrimental as opposed to foregoing the committee evaluation and having my application complete in mid June?

 

[IlDestriero]

I didn't use one as I was out of school for 2 years and had a bad relationship with the premed advisor. It never came up.
If they said they wouldn't get it out until October, I wouldn't get one. If they ask, just say they said it wouldn't be done until October, and you were not comfortable waiting that long as you wanted to be complete as early as possible. Who would fault you for that?