How Important is a Committee Letter?

[JustMeditate]

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Before I get called out for it, I'd like to say that I did use the search function. According to both my Pre-Med Adviser and previous forum posts, it looks like Committee Letters are pretty freaking important. In essence, it seems as if failing to have a Committee Letter is application suicide. But I wanted to get a grasp on my unique situation.

Recently, I found out that our Pre-Med Committee is really, really bad when it comes to putting out Committee Letters. In essence, it can take my school's pre-professional office three months or more to complete and send out Committee Letters. Furthermore, the Pre-Med Committee won't write you a letter until your final MCAT scores are in. So, if you are ready to apply in early June, the letter doesn't get sent out till August. The longer you wait, the later your letter is sent out. I'll definitely have all my materials together, including my MCAT score, by the end of April 2012. But I want to apply at the beginning of June. I don't want all my hard work thrown out the window because my school sends out committee letters out at an unethically slow rate.

I know that failing to have a committee letter is application suicide, but so is sending in primaries any later than mid-July. I've worked extremely hard to achieve a >3.9 GPA, over 1500 hours of research, volunteer work, leadership, the whole shebang. I'd hate for late Committee Letter to cut the number of interviews I could get in half. Should I just risk a late Committee Letter and suck it up? Should I just skip the Committee Letter? Obviously, I will be calling up some real life adcoms to get their opinion, but it seems I am at the mercy of my school's pre-professional office and whatever timeline they choose to follow. Is this true...

 

[aSagacious]

You don't send in your LORs with the primary (in June), you send them in with the secondary (in July or August). If you take an April MCAT and give your committee everything right away I think you'll be fine.

 

[ppappui]

You don't need the LOR to have your primary verified and sent out to schools. I don't know what some people are doing when they wait for their LOR before submitting their primaries.
Just submit your primary as early as possible, let it soak up a month or so before you get verified and start receiving secondaries. Then submit secondaries along with LORs, and then you'll be complete. If you get your MCAT done early, your committee will get started with the packet, and by the time you submit your secondaries, the LOR's will be ready. Letter packets are only necessary to mark your application complete and ready for review. You don't need them with primaries so don't sweat it.

 

[chronicidal]

yep. as long as your LORs are in around mid-august, you're in pretty good shape.

 

[LizzyM]

Chill, dude. We don't even begin reading applications and making interview invitations until August. We can't even make offers until October 15. You are in good company; many excellent schools write & send these letters over the summer.

 

[Noah Capurso]

What you describe is actually pretty standard for committee letters. Taking 3 months is not an unacceptable amount of time to wait if you consider how many of these letters your health professions advisory office has to write. In general they are quite detailed and very work intensive to put together. As long there are applicants from your college getting into medical school, I wouldn't worry. Your numbers are solid, so assuming your ECs are solid as well, you shouldn't have a problem. In general, the actual committee letter itself isn't weighed very heavily. They all read about the same to be totally honest. But it does have to be included. You are right to say that not having a committee letter is application suicide but waiting for a letter until mid-August certainly is not. My advice is to take a nice deep breath and do your best not to worry about it.

 

[latrala2300]

im pretty glad my school didn't have a committee. everyone seems to have issues with these groups.