Does it matter who writes your Letters of Recs?

[mariambaby3]

My school has a pre-medical advisory board that receives all of your letters of recommendations and compiles it into one big letter and sends it to med schools.

Does it matter who I get the letters from in this case? For example, does it matter whether my recommender is a professor vs just a Ph. D lecturer? And is it ok if he/she is a research associate that teaches one of my classes?

In other words, does your recommender have to be a tenured professor?

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[Ismet]

This is referred to as a "committee letter." The committee at my school wrote the composite letter, but the individual letters of recommendation were included with that composite letter when they applied it to my AMCAS. I'm not sure if every school does it that way, though.

I've had a couple interviewers pull up one of my individual letters and talk about what that person said, so yes, it does matter who your writers are. Letters can be from professors, research PIs, volunteer coordinators, employers...I would avoid "research associate" - is that a grad student or something?

Ask your pre-health advisor if there are certain requirements for LORs for the committee (mine was at least 5 letters total, at least 3 from science faculty)

 

[zwitterion34]

Of course it matters! But will it blend? That is the question....

 

[octupus]

My school has a pre-medical advisory board that receives all of your letters of recommendations and compiles it into one big letter and sends it to med schools.

Does it matter who I get the letters from in this case? For example, does it matter whether my recommender is a professor vs just a Ph. D lecturer? And is it ok if he/she is a research associate that teaches one of my classes?

In other words, does your recommender have to be a tenured professor?

Yes
No
Depends. on if this associate had a big impact on your work, how well this person knows you, how good this letter will be, how many letters you have in total.
and No

Even though your committee will submit a composite letter, each individual letter will also be accessible by your school (at least that's how my committee does it).

 

[Noah Capurso]

The previous posters are correct that Adcomms receive both a committee letter and the individual LORs. It usually does not really matter all that much who is writing your letter, as long as they know you well and can speak to your abilities. The writer certainly does not have to be a tenured professor or department chair or something. Think about it this way, Adcomms get thousands of LORs and there is no way they are looking up each letter writer individually to see what their credentials are. That being said, the letters should come from a position of authority. For the most part, I would steer clear of graduate students, post docs, research assistants, and TAs. If you worked with one of these people very closely (a post doc on a research project for example) and you feel that they will write you an exceptional letter, having one lower ranking letter writer among all your letters should not hurt you in any way. Almost always, the quality of the letter is MUCH more important that who the writer is.

 

[EsseQuamVideri]

The previous posters are correct that Adcomms receive both a committee letter and the individual LORs. It usually does not really matter all that much who is writing your letter, as long as they know you well and can speak to your abilities. The writer certainly does not have to be a tenured professor or department chair or something. Think about it this way, Adcomms get thousands of LORs and there is no way they are looking up each letter writer individually to see what their credentials are. That being said, the letters should come from a position of authority. For the most part, I would steer clear of graduate students, post docs, research assistants, and TAs. If you worked with one of these people very closely (a post doc on a research project for example) and you feel that they will write you an exceptional letter, having one lower ranking letter writer among all your letters should not hurt you in any way. Almost always, the quality of the letter is MUCH more important that who the writer is.

Does it matter? Well, that depends.

It depends on how competitive you are aiming to be. At top programs, even though your adjunct professor knew you very well and recommended you highly, his/her lack of tenured position/authority in their respective field will make a difference. In general, get LORs (as many as you can, then have your premed committee advisor tell you which to send) from people who know you best but don't think a letter from "big-named researcher/department chair" won't improve your chances.

As one top-ranked program stated, "we want letters that say so-and-so is the best student I have had in my 25 years teaching" at insert-reputable-program, and signed by some-famous-physician-or-scientist.

 

[Noah Capurso]

Sorry, but I've got to disagree here. No matter how big of a deal you may think a doctor or scientist is at your school, I guarantee you that they are not that famous. Fame of the academic type is extremely limited and the probability that an AdComm member will have heard of a specific letter writer is extremely low. And they aren't going to take the time to look them up. Seriously, how many Nobel Prize winners (who are still alive) can you name off the top of your head? I bet no more than a couple and these are the biggest of all the bigshots. Unless a letter is being written by Paul Farmer or Francis Collins or something it really does not matter.

It is much more important to have a letter written by someone who knows you well and can speak in specifics about your positive qualities and abilities. The only exception I would say is within a specific institution. In that case, an AdComm member might personally know a letter writer and their endorsement might carry extra weight. But other than that, go with whoever is going to write you a good letter.

And finally, I would advise against a shotgun approach of getting as many LORs as possible. It's a waste of your time and the writer's time. A premed advisor should not be allowed to tell you which letters to send and which not to send if you strictly abide by the rules and waive your right to see the letters. Be realistic, you know who is going to be able to write you a good letter and who isn't. Asking some prof you barely know to write a letter just because it m"ight be a good one" is not a good approach. Carefully select the proper number of writers and then call it a day.