How are you sending LOR's?

[sistahnik]

Do applicants send out their own LOR's sometimes or do they use the letter services?

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[Oceaner]

Students don't send them themselves, but you can give stamped letters to your references for them to forward to your pre-med committee if you have it in your school. I am not sure about to schools themselves, but I suppose if you have 2-3 it shouldn't be a problem.

It's much easier to use services like interfolio for larger numbers though, and I believe that's what most people do.

 

[inaminute]

Students don't send them themselves, but you can give stamped letters to your references for them to forward to your pre-med committee if you have it in your school. I am not sure about to schools themselves, but I suppose if you have 2-3 it shouldn't be a problem.

It's much easier to use services like interfolio for larger numbers though, and I believe that's what most people do.

that would just cause more colonization of the unsuspecting ("stupid") people of the world. For shame.

 

[timurx]

Virtual Evals


Which, btw, is supposedly supposed to make this process faster? Whats the point of immedaitely making your LORs available to med school only to have them download them in year 2056?

Forget about applying early, Med School Adcoms = Rate Determining Step

 

[Oceaner]

that would just cause more colonization of the unsuspecting ("stupid") people of the world. For shame.

oh dear.

 

[inaminute]

yeah what a dumb comment, eh?

 

[sistahnik]

How much to use Interfolio? What is virtual eval?

 

[MassTransport]

VirtualEvals is this thing that pre-med committees use to submit LORs, so they're not available for individual use. Interfolio's your best bet for a letter-sending service.

$15 for a one-year subscription, $4 per school for electronic delivery, $5 per school for ground mail. A good portion of med schools are set up to receive Interfolio electronically. http://www.interfolio.com

Personally, if you're applying to a lot of schools, I'd definitely suggest you invest in this or a similar service.

 

[sistahnik]

Wow Interfolio sounds pretty cool. I might just do the transfer. Thanks MassTransport.

 

[Law2Doc]

Do applicants send out their own LOR's sometimes or do they use the letter services?

The letters should never be in your hands.

 

[EM84]

Virtual Evals


Which, btw, is supposedly supposed to make this process faster? Whats the point of immedaitely making your LORs available to med school only to have them download them in year 2056?

Forget about applying early, Med School Adcoms = Rate Determining Step

haha, so true.

 

[silverlining1]

My school's career center provides a letter service. You give your prof a form on which you agree to have a confidential or open letter of recommendation. (Go for confidential!!) The prof will then send the letter to the letter service. When you're ready to send your letters out, use the online system to request that your letters be sent to a school (you can pick and choose which letters to send).

I am not sure what percentage of schools have such a service, but it's worth checking to see if yours does! My school does this service for free.

 

[sistahnik]

Actually, my school does have one!

 

[sistahnik]

I checked my LOR status with my school's service and I have 1 letter accounted for, so that's pretty cool. I'm just waiting for the rest of them.

 

[silverlining1]

I checked my LOR status with my school's service and I have 1 letter accounted for, so that's pretty cool. I'm just waiting for the rest of them.

Yay! My school's letter service works pretty quickly - they acknowledge receipt of the letter within a day of receiving it, and they send out letters upon request within a couple days. This is comforting because I'm only missing 1 letter (I hope my prof sends it in soon) and I'll be able to send it out a few days after he sends it in.

 

[sistahnik]

That's pretty cool. My school seems pretty fast also, but we'll see after I start sending them out.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

The letters should never be in your hands.

Prove that it ever was. Most of the profs here just print like 20 copies of the letter, sign them and hand them to the student for them to stuff into an envelope with our school's logo and address (which I have a box full of in my desk courtesy of my research project) and addressing. Then you can save money by (since it looks like official correspondence) dropping it into the outgoing mail for the school for free.

 

[sistahnik]

I just want to have them all received and ready to go.

 

[masterMood]

What is interfolio?


Can someone explain the LOR process? Do you submit your LOR WITH your primary application? Or do you submit them for the secondaries?


Please explain

 

[MassTransport]

Interfolio's a letter-handling service that sends your letters for you. Prof --sends to--> Interfolio --sends to--> Schools instead of Prof --sends to--> (Maybe You) --sends to--> Schools. It's better because the prof only has to write one letter and it helps you keep organized, but worse because it can become expensive.

Usually you submit your LORs with secondary applications.

 

[silverlining1]

Usually you submit your LORs with secondary applications.

Correct - you do not send LORs with the AMCAS. You send them to individual schools when they request them. I believe Texas is an exception; I think LORs may go with the TMDSAS.

 

[masterMood]

Ahhh i see, well since it costs 5 bucks per school (for ground mail) versus 4 bucks per school (for electronic - which sounds like a big ripoff btw).


Why not just send them out yourself? I mean if you apply to say 20 schools, and you send the secondaries out using a stamp (which is like 40 cents?), that's quite a big difference in cost right? Or would you not be using a regular stamp to send in your secondaries but rather using something more reliable like certified mail or fedex...

Also, which method (electronically) or through ground mail would your rather choose? I've heard of some horror stories where adcoms have lost secondaries or never received them, so do the medical schoool give you notification when they have received your application as well?

 

[silverlining1]

Ahhh i see, well since it costs 5 bucks per school (for ground mail) versus 4 bucks per school (for electronic - which sounds like a big ripoff btw).


Why not just send them out yourself? I mean if you apply to say 20 schools, and you send the secondaries out using a stamp (which is like 40 cents?), that's quite a big difference in cost right? Or would you not be using a regular stamp to send in your secondaries but rather using something more reliable like certified mail or fedex...

Also, which method (electronically) or through ground mail would your rather choose? I've heard of some horror stories where adcoms have lost secondaries or never received them, so do the medical schoool give you notification when they have received your application as well?

If you don't use a letter service, don't handle the letter yourself. Give a stamped, addressed envelope to your letter writer.

You could send your LORs regular mail - so yes, 41 cents each. But again, don't handle the letter yourself for confidentiality reasons.

 

[MassTransport]

Yup, you're not supposed to handle the letter. And therein lies the problem. If you're applying to 20 schools, you would (theoretically, if you're playing by the rules) give the professor 20 envelopes and tell him/her when to send them to which school. This is a serious hassle for the professor and probably a headache for you too. So letter-sending services like Interfolio will act as the middleman for a fee. For a lot of people, spending ~$100 to send out letters to 20 schools is worth it compared to the risk of pissing off a letter writer or losing track of letters.

 

[sistahnik]

Yeah just use the letter service.

 

[mvenus929]

Also, which method (electronically) or through ground mail would your rather choose? I've heard of some horror stories where adcoms have lost secondaries or never received them, so do the medical schoool give you notification when they have received your application as well?

Some schools accept electronically. Others don't. Colorado, for example, requires letters to be submitted electronically, whereas Cornell doesn't want them that way.

Also, the letters aren't really sent WITH the secondary. You just submit them about the same time as you submit your secondary. But since you're not supposed to handle the letters yourself, you can't send them with your secondary (if your secondary is being sent snail mail). But yes, generally schools will let you know when they have your secondary, and then when you are complete. Some don't, and you have to call to check, but most do.

 

[UCDavisISokay]

argg

 

[ocwaveoc]

Unless you apply to one school, I'd definitely use Interfolio. It's SOOOO convenient. Our school LOR delivery service requires that you come down in person to make requests for deliveries and payment. With Interfolio, after finishing secondaries at 10 PM, I can simply log onto Interfolio's site and choose which letters to be delivered where and pay for them with a credit card. I highly recommend Interfolio! Of the schools I'm applying to, about 40% accept electronic letters which eliminates the possibility of lost mail. I LOVE INTERFOLIO!

 

[Dr_Dan_the_man]

Prove that it ever was. Most of the profs here just print like 20 copies of the letter, sign them and hand them to the student for them to stuff into an envelope with our school's logo and address (which I have a box full of in my desk courtesy of my research project) and addressing. Then you can save money by (since it looks like official correspondence) dropping it into the outgoing mail for the school for free.

that only works until you hit a school that requires the profs signature across the seal of the envelope.
dont be cheap, the cost of interfolio will become negligent in the grand scheme of your apps

 

[DropkickMurphy]

that only works until you hit a school that requires the profs signature across the seal of the envelope.

That would not be that hard to achieve here either, like it would be at some schools.. I speak to damn near every prof I would have write me a letter on an at least weekly basis. Three of them I quite regularly walk up to and say "Here. Sign this." *holds out purchase order, etc*. Getting them to sign 20 envelopes would not be a challenge.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

dont be cheap, the cost of interfolio will become negligent in the grand scheme of your apps

I'm not being cheap, it's just easier in my case to do it this way.

 

[DeadCactus]

So if you have 3 LORs and want to send them to a school; are you paying $5 total to have all three letters mailed, or would it be $15?

 

[sistahnik]

I don't understand. If the letters are all at the service then how will I get their signature across the seal? Are you saying that some schools don't even accept lor's from the services at all? Sorry, all this is a bit much to handle right now.

I mean I know I can go to them and ask for their sig, but I thought the whole point of the service was to handle all that stuff.