Do schools with Committee letters have an edge?

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Blackjack7

Blackjack7

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Alright, I'll be honest, I'm not at the med school application stage yet. 4 years till that to be very honest. However, this thread belongs in this section of the forum as it directly has to do with med school applications.

So, I can either go to UMD or UVa for undergrad. Both have a premed office, but UVa has recently stopped giving out committee letters to med schools. Is that a significant disadvantage compared to UMD, that does offer committee letters?
 
I don't know but I went to UC Davis and they got rid of their committee the year after I got there.
 
Stanford has no committee letter...we do fine.
 
Blackjack7 said:
So, I can either go to UMD or UVa for undergrad. Both have a premed office, but UVa has recently stopped giving out committee letters to med schools. Is that a significant disadvantage compared to UMD, that does offer committee letters?
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Don't choose your undergrad based on whether it offers a committee letter.
 
Many very prestigious schools don't have committee letters so I really doubt it.
 
I think it's better to go to a school WITHOUT a committee letter. That way, you do not have to worry about "beating" the people are your own school in the eyes of some committee.

IMO, committee letters are useless because it's so hard to compare applicants from among schools.

Is a top 10% students at a top 200 school equivalent to a top 30% student from an Ivy League? We cannot say for sure.
 
Lucca said:
This. Also I think committee letters are dumb and a waste of an applicant's time.
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At many schools, this is true. The committee hamstrings its applicants with terrible advice, pointless hoop-jumping, and a lazy timeline.

At a few schools, the committee doesn't do these things, and it may even help. They distill the hard-to-grasp aspects of each applicant's path through their school into a few sentences, facilitating the adcom's review of the application. However, this convenience comes at the cost of the committee's judgment filling in for the adcom's to some extent, which has its own risks. But you can see why adcoms strongly prefer applicants to get committee letters if they are available.
justadream said:
IMO, committee letters are useless because it's so hard to compare applicants from among schools.

Is a top 10% students at a top 200 school equivalent to a top 30% student from an Ivy League? We cannot say for sure.
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The point of a committee letter is to compare applicants within a school. The committee is supposed to say which of its applicants took harder courses, or were involved in more significant activities on campus, or are nicer people. Again, it's their judgment, which can be unfair, but the idea is that they know their own school and can provide that information to adcoms, who don't.
 
No


Blackjack7 said:
Alright, I'll be honest, I'm not at the med school application stage yet. 4 years till that to be very honest. However, this thread belongs in this section of the forum as it directly has to do with med school applications.

So, I can either go to UMD or UVa for undergrad. Both have a premed office, but UVa has recently stopped giving out committee letters to med schools. Is that a significant disadvantage compared to UMD, that does offer committee letters?
Click to expand...
 
breakintheroof said:
At many schools, this is true. The committee hamstrings its applicants with terrible advice, pointless hoop-jumping, and a lazy timeline.

At a few schools, the committee doesn't do these things, and it may even help. They distill the hard-to-grasp aspects of each applicant's path through their school into a few sentences, facilitating the adcom's review of the application. However, this convenience comes at the cost of the committee's judgment filling in for the adcom's to some extent, which has its own risks. But you can see why adcoms strongly prefer applicants to get committee letters if they are available.

The point of a committee letter is to compare applicants within a school. The committee is supposed to say which of its applicants took harder courses, or were involved in more significant activities on campus, or are nicer people. Again, it's their judgment, which can be unfair, but the idea is that they know their own school and can provide that information to adcoms, who don't.
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I get that it might be useful to adcoms. But it can very easily be bad for the actual student. Let's say you have two applicants:

Top 5 School, 40 MCAT, 3.8 GPA, Ranked "Top 20%"

Top 5 School, 40 MCAT, 3.8 GPA, No Committee letter

The second one probably looks better than the first.
 
If I could go back in time, I'd go to a school with no committee. I constantly saw students giving the premed director food nearly daily. Director got a big heavier over the course of my undergrad now that I think about it.

OP, some schools like mine, does not give out letters to all their applicants. They put gpa and/or mcat requirements, or make silly mandatory weekly meetings. Others given them to a certain percentage of students because there are simply too many students and not enough hands to type letters.
 
It's a terrible, terrible, terrible motive to pick a school.
 
Wow, it seems that the committee might actually be negative! That was unexpected... I'll keep that in mind. Obviously I would not choose a school based on this, but I didn't wanted to keep this thread relevant to the premed section of the forum, and wanted to see what current premed (or later) people thought about this specific topic.
 
justadream said:
I get that it might be useful to adcoms. But it can very easily be bad for the actual student. Let's say you have two applicants:

Top 5 School, 40 MCAT, 3.8 GPA, Ranked "Top 20%"

Top 5 School, 40 MCAT, 3.8 GPA, No Committee letter

The second one probably looks better than the first.
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Is the idea that there is a rating higher than "Top 20%," so the first applicant looks suspect because they have great numbers but didn't get the highest recommendation? I see your point, that the committee is not helping that applicant. But I come to a slightly different conclusion in this scenario. The second applicant doesn't necessarily look better than the first, they look like they require more careful assessment due to the absence of the committee's judgment. (Unless you mean they come from the same school, in which case the conclusion is different.)

If we imagine a world without committee letters, I think I agree with you that students would be better off. If every student got the careful adcom assessment instead of the committee's, then it might be a more fair and just world. Then again, maybe it would be harder to clearly communicate what courses and activities are really valuable at each school, which would harm applicants. I'm not totally sure.
 
In spirit the committee letter is a good idea but not anymore. Most schools are not personal enough to write really informative ones and medical school should not be so exclusive as to need a school to screen before they do who may or may not be considered.
 
breakintheroof said:
Is the idea that there is a rating higher than "Top 20%," so the first applicant looks suspect because they have great numbers but didn't get the highest recommendation? I see your point, that the committee is not helping that applicant. But I come to a slightly different conclusion in this scenario. The second applicant doesn't necessarily look better than the first, they look like they require more careful assessment due to the absence of the committee's judgment. (Unless you mean they come from the same school, in which case the conclusion is different.)

If we imagine a world without committee letters, I think I agree with you that students would be better off. If every student got the careful adcom assessment instead of the committee's, then it might be a more fair and just world. Then again, maybe it would be harder to clearly communicate what courses and activities are really valuable at each school, which would harm applicants. I'm not totally sure.
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Yeah I am assuming that there are higher categories than top 20% and that these students are applying to Harvard/Stanford/Penn/Hopkins/UCSF (which are likely looking for the top category). Thus, we can consider "top 20%" to be a piece of negative information.

If you want to use another number (e.g., top 30%) to represent "negative information", go ahead.

In such a scenario, I think the second applicant looks better because there is no guaranteed "negative" information. Whereas a more careful assessment of the second applicant may still yield negative information, the first is guaranteed to have the negative part.

To complicate the comparison, let's compare:

Student C: Top 50%, 36 MCAT, 3.8 GPA Harvard
Student D: Top 5% (highest category), 36 MCAT, 3.8 GPA, [top 1000 college here]

I'd argue that student C would look better if he simply did not have the committee letter. The "top 50%" is almost surely a negative in this case, even though being top 50% at Harvard might be harder than being top 5% at a top 1000 college.

Obviously, the moral of the story is that you better make sure you are in the top category. It can be pretty hard to do that at a school like Harvard, however.
 
If anything I'd say go to a school without a committee letter. I have put in so much extra work and additional essays for my school's prehealth committee for what will most likely be a boring 1 page summary of my other letters.

Having to write ~30 pages of essay prompts for my schools committee for them to write a 1 page summary makes no sense (which will probably just focus on MCAT and GPA anyway).
 
The thing about committee letters is, they can hurt you but they can't help you (more than a school with no committee at all). All it takes is one committee to decide that letters are going out October 25th this year, and you are sunk.

And if you fight the power and you apply from committee school without a committee letter, you are equally sunk.

What benefit does a committee bring you that you couldn't have gotten at a committeeless school?

Choose the school that won't have a committee in four years.
 
Wow... rather strong hatred for committees! Not that I'm surprised I guess. I have yet to see any sort of "committee" without a huge share of hate. I have emailed a student that did enjoy this committee for some reason, and am awaiting feedback.
 
Reading through this thread, I'm having second thoughts about doing the committee letter next year. At my uni the committee letter is preferred, but I'm taking the universal advice to apply early and broadly to heart, and I worry about the committee not turning in the letter on time. There's another option to send LORs from individual professors. Should I opt for the latter?
 
Absolutely do NOT pick your undergraduate school based off whether it has a committee or not. Plus, medical schools wouldn't hold it against you if your school didn't offer a committee letter.
 
Garurumon said:
Reading through this thread, I'm having second thoughts about doing the committee letter next year. At my uni the committee letter is preferred, but I'm taking the universal advice to apply early and broadly to heart, and I worry about the committee not turning in the letter on time. There's another option to send LORs from individual professors. Should I opt for the latter?
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I would suggest first talking to them to see if they could submit it as early as possible. Express your concerns about how a late letter could potentially hurt you. Maybe they'll work with you. You would still have to answer to school's "if your school offers a committee, why didn't you use it?" question. I think reasons like yours are totally valid but then again, I am not an adcom.
 
Focus on the bigger picture--does this school consistently get students into med schools? (instead of "does have a committee letter help the students get into med school?")
 
snowflakes said:
Focus on the bigger picture--does this school consistently get students into med schools? (instead of "does have a committee letter help the students get into med school?")
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True but those stats are also manipulated often I hear.
And if I ask around about UMD vs UVa, I get 50/50 different answers.
 
The only negative I see about having a committee letter is the timing of release. My undergrad doesn't release letters till mid august. I've heard other schools do so even later.

It can really delay your cycle if ALL your letters are tied up at someone else's whim.
 
justadream said:
Haha yes, somewhat.

I looked it up and there are >2800 4-year degree granting colleges in the US alone (https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84) so top 1000 is actually better than average!
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lol! Gonna brag my top 1000 status to my mom now :laugh:


On a more serious note, besides substituting a committee letter with letters from professors, some (very few) med schools allow a letter from a premed advisor (differentiating that from the committee letter), so if your undergrad school has various premed advisors then you can use that option too.
 
Did you guys ever have trouble with the timing of your committee letters clashing with early application timing or other steps of the application process?
 
Blackjack7 said:
Did you guys ever have trouble with the timing of your committee letters clashing with early application timing or other steps of the application process?
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Some will. Some won't. There are undergrads applying to other health profession schools like podiatry or optometry and they require committee letters too so you can imagine the workload committees have. Granted, these different professional schools have different dates for cycles so I imagine committees can plan accordingly.

If you find that your committee will set you back in terms of dates, then you must decide whether you should continue without their letter or not. The correct answer will vary case by case
 
A girl and I had our committee interviews on the same day.

Her committee letter was uploaded in 3 weeks, mine was uploaded in 8 weeks.

I would have been complete much earlier if that hadn't happened. "Committee horror stories" do exist.
 
Oh that sounds very scary... The school with the committee I'm considering does guarantee letters to be sent out by August 1st though. That should be good news right?
 
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