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GoBlue2019 said:
I asked a volunteer supervisor who has known me for nearly a decade to write me a letter of recommendation. She knows me exceptionally well and I knew she would write me a very strong letter. She sent me her letter after submitting and the content is fantastic, however, her format is scaring me.

The first page is just like any LOR, in paragraph form talking about how I would be qualified for medical school.

Her second page starts with "After reviewing the pre-professional competencies, here are the ones I'd like to discuss." She then goes through and lists 7 of the competencies and examples for how I have demonstrated them in my work in the format of:

Service Orientation: example....

Social Skills: .....

Cultural Competence: ....
etc.

She doesn't intervene them into the letter like a normal LOR...

Do you think this will be looked at negatively? Besides the format, it is an extremely strong letter straight from the heart, and I planned on sending it to all my schools. Now I am hesitant.
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As always premeds see things in such negatively light yet the supervisor is doing the letter in a manner directly suggested from AAMC.
 
GoBlue2019 said:
I asked a volunteer supervisor who has known me for nearly a decade to write me a letter of recommendation. She knows me exceptionally well and I knew she would write me a very strong letter. She sent me her letter after submitting and the content is fantastic, however, her format is scaring me.

The first page is just like any LOR, in paragraph form talking about how I would be qualified for medical school.

Her second page starts with "After reviewing the pre-professional competencies, here are the ones I'd like to discuss." She then goes through and lists 7 of the competencies and examples for how I have demonstrated them in my work in the format of:

Service Orientation: example....

Social Skills: .....

Cultural Competence: ....
etc.

She doesn't intervene them into the letter like a normal LOR...

Do you think this will be looked at negatively? Besides the format, it is an extremely strong letter straight from the heart, and I planned on sending it to all my schools. Now I am hesitant.
Click to expand...
Her format will make it easier to pick out the items of specific importance to a given school, compared to one that uses all narrative style.

I'm assuming that you are reported in a positive light for all those competencies?
 
GoBlue2019 said:
Yes, all positive! I'm very surprised by this because I really thought narrative style was the status quo and straying from it seemed unprofessional. Definitely happy.
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I guess you've never seen the many, many professional reference request forms that are basically a check-list or a scoring system.
 
Send it in. It's the content that counts. Even if the format is unconventional (it's not), if anything, it would reflect poorly on the writer and not the applicant. Same goes to spelling, grammatical errors, and other stuff along those lines. Great job getting a stand-out LOR.
 
GoBlue2019 said:
Yes, all positive! I'm very surprised by this because I really thought narrative style was the status quo and straying from it seemed unprofessional. Definitely happy.
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Catalystik said:
I guess you've never seen the many, many professional reference request forms that are basically a check-list or a scoring system.
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In fact, some medical schools will use this kind of scoring system when evaluating applicants
 
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