How many letters of rec?

[Kalogada]

Hello,
How many letters of recommendations should be submitted to psych programs? And what should the breakdown be?

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[Trieb]

The wisdom I received from advisors was that you only need three, but when I applied last year I unexpectedly found that there were a few programs I really liked (Cambridge Health Alliance comes to mind) that required four.

 

[Stagg737]

Imo 4 letters is safe, 2 from psychiatrists and 2 from other specialties. All should be very positive and ideally be in line with and support the overall message of your application.

 

[MacDonaldTriad]

Three is the ask for the vast majority of psych programs. One really needs to be psych and 2 is better, many people say their program wants one non-psych, but is isn't uniform. Other specialties want one from a chair or one from a PD, but this is very rare in psych. ERAS does flag letters from chairs. As above, there are a few programs that want 4 letters. In this case, I would think that any less than 2 psych would be bad and any more than 3 would be bad.