forwarding of letters of recommendation

[batista_123]

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i dont understadn how this works. For the LORs for medical school, are you not supposed to get them from professors, put them in envelope, put 39 cent stamp on it and send it to medical school? what does pre-health committe mean? how do they forward the letters? why cant you forward them yourself? if my school doesnt have a health committee what am i supposed to do?

 

[dr_zippo]

i dont understadn how this works. For the LORs for medical school, are you not supposed to get them from professors, put them in envelope, put 39 cent stamp on it and send it to medical school? what does pre-health committe mean? how do they forward the letters? why cant you forward them yourself? if my school doesnt have a health committee what am i supposed to do?

For graduate school I just gave pre-addressed envelopes with stamps to everyone writing me letters. For medical school I wised up and used interfolio.

 

[batista_123]

For graduate school I just gave pre-addressed envelopes with stamps to everyone writing me letters. For medical school I wised up and used interfolio.

what's interfolio? is it better to ue them or send it yourself?

 

[leahmaria]

i think all med schools prefer your letters to be confidential (so, you send them with a waiver form saying that you've waived your right to see them). If you're sending them yourself this might not work well (??)

Also, it seems that interfolio is more reliable to get things to where they're going in a timely fasion and all together than having them sent separately

 

[63768]

if your school doesn't have a prehealth committee, use interfolio. i believe how it works is you have the recommenders send their letter + a waiver form to interfolio, who will keep your letters together in a file and will send them to which ever schools you request them to.

if your school does have a prehealth committee, it's the same as interfolio and would be preferred over interfolio. if you have a prehealth committee and you don't send your letters via them, i've heard this can raise questions as to why you didn't use your school resources. your recommenders send the letter and waiver form to your school, your school sends the letters when you request them to.

your final alternative is to give your recommenders addressed, stamped envelopes each time you need a letter sent. this is much more difficult and costly than using interfolio.

you cannot send the letters yourself because med schools don't want you to have read the letter prior to sending it. if you're able to read the letter, you can have the letter changed to your liking so it may not be as candid and honest as it should be.

 

[reverend doc]

do all schools accept letters forwarded by interfolio?

 

[clusterfunk]

you cannot send the letters yourself because med schools don't want you to have read the letter prior to sending it. if you're able to read the letter, you can have the letter changed to your liking so it may not be as candid and honest as it should be.

I don't think that's necessarily true... I have all my letters from out-of-town recommenders in my possession--all signed, sealed, with signatures over the seals--just waiting to be sent. Unless adcoms make a big fuss over the fact that all those letters have the same postmark date/location, then sending the letters myself is completely a non-issue. Besides, all my recommenders showed their letters to me and specifically asked for my input.

 

[deleted36260]

I don't think that's necessarily true... I have all my letters from out-of-town recommenders in my possession--all signed, sealed, with signatures over the seals--just waiting to be sent. Unless adcoms make a big fuss over the fact that all those letters have the same postmark date/location, then sending the letters myself is completely a non-issue. Besides, all my recommenders showed their letters to me and specifically asked for my input.

Is this generally acceptable? Are others doing this?


Also, what do you do when you have a great professor your 2nd year and you think they would write a great LOR. Do you ask for it ASAP while you are still fresh in their mind (and just have it sealed, etc.) or do you wait until application time to go hit them back up? I see people on here talking about how they have been collecting LOR's for a while. What the hell are they doing with them?

I've got no LORs, and looking at applying 2007. I should have already known all this 🙁

 

[foofish]

Is this generally acceptable? Are others doing this?


Also, what do you do when you have a great professor your 2nd year and you think they would write a great LOR. Do you ask for it ASAP while you are still fresh in their mind (and just have it sealed, etc.) or do you wait until application time to go hit them back up?

I've got no LORs, and looking at applying 2007. I should have already known all this 🙁

I'd ask while it's still fresh in their mind...some of these profs are asked to write hundreds of LORs a year, so you're also giving the professor some extra time to get it done.

 

[deleted36260]

I'd ask while it's still fresh in their mind...some of these profs are asked to write hundreds of LORs a year, so you're also giving the professor some extra time to get it done.

What gets done with said LOR then? Have them seal it? Have them send it to interfolio? Who are they addressing when writing the letter?

I feel like I'm often having to hand hold my crappy pre-prof commitee, so excuse me if this all seems a little daft. I've got no one but SDN walking me through this 😳