Confused about this LOR business

[matthewdarby]

Okay, I've been trying to piece this bit together from the AAMC website and haven't had much luck, it may be my ORGO-addled brain just misfiring, but I turn now to you, my faithful SDN, to ameliorate my woes.

So, let me get this straight, we don't send our LOR's in with our main AMCAS to be forwarded to all schools. Instead we send each individual school whatever LORs they require...so.. do you guys have a team of various letter writers? does a prof just give you 10+ copies of his/her letter? Do you send LORs from folks you trust more to the schools you'd rather get in?
Can someone explain this to me, or at least belittle me with a quick link that can answer everything?
thank you

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[bbabul01]

Yes, not sent with the AMCAS, they are sent individually. You have two (good) options:

1) Use your school's committee letter if it exists, and have them send them.

2) Use www.interfolio.com to load letters and automatically send them. Soooo worth the money.

And a bad option:

Send them yourself, with multiple copies, and risk missing letters.

 

[LizzyM]

bbabul01's got it right.

If your college pre-med office offers the service, you have your recommenders submit letters to the pre-med office. The pre-med office forwards the letters to the medical schools that you specify. Sometimes the letters include a cover sheet with information about the school in general, sometimes this also includes some specific information about you (class rank, etc). Some schools have a committee or pre-med advisor letter that accompanies the letters of recommendation. If your school offers a committee letter you are taking a big risk to apply without it (Notre Dame, Duke, Penn, Yale have legendary committee letters just to name a few.)

If you don't have this service at your school, use Interfolio. Many successful applicants do.

 

[matthewdarby]

thanks for the help
I attend a pretty wimpy satellite state school, so they usually don't bother filling in the pre-meds about anything... I had to explain what a MSAR was to my pre-professional society before they would buy one...
so obviously i get most of my advising from SDN!
thanks for your help!