Letter from Core Rotation vs. SubI

[rd31]

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Hey everyone, I'm looking for advice on a specific situation:

I did not honor my core medicine rotation but likely will honor my sub-I (more lenient grading). I have a LOR from the primary attending from both rotations. I believe my core rotation letter will be stronger (based on the enthusiasm of the attending) than my subI letter (attending told me I was good but didn't give spectacular feedback).

If I had the choice of using either letter, which do you think I should choose? Would it raise a red flag if I submitted my core letter rather than my subI letter?

 

[235009]

Hey everyone, I'm looking for advice on a specific situation:

I did not honor my core medicine rotation but likely will honor my sub-I (more lenient grading). I have a LOR from the primary attending from both rotations. I believe my core rotation letter will be stronger (based on the enthusiasm of the attending) than my subI letter (attending told me I was good but didn't give spectacular feedback).

If I had the choice of using either letter, which do you think I should choose? Would it raise a red flag if I submitted my core letter rather than my subI letter?

Why would a strong letter be a red flag? I can't deal with some of these questions anymore.

 

[rd31]

Why would a strong letter be a red flag? I can't deal with some of these questions anymore.

I don't think it's a bad question. The culture at my school is that your sub-I letter is what programs tend to expect, and few applicants submit core rotation letters from my school. I want to see if these beliefs really hold true for others as well.

 

[Raryn]

Hey everyone, I'm looking for advice on a specific situation:

I did not honor my core medicine rotation but likely will honor my sub-I (more lenient grading). I have a LOR from the primary attending from both rotations. I believe my core rotation letter will be stronger (based on the enthusiasm of the attending) than my subI letter (attending told me I was good but didn't give spectacular feedback).

If I had the choice of using either letter, which do you think I should choose? Would it raise a red flag if I submitted my core letter rather than my subI letter?

The answer is quite simple: Use both.

You get four letters. Yes, the minimum at many programs is 3, but no program will ding you for submitting four. One should be your chair's letter. That leaves 3 spots. Perfectly legitimate to use one from your m3 rotation, one from your m4 rotation, and one from whatever the hell you want.

 

[rd31]

The answer is quite simple: Use both.

You get four letters. Yes, the minimum at many programs is 3, but no program will ding you for submitting four. One should be your chair's letter. That leaves 3 spots. Perfectly legitimate to use one from your m3 rotation, one from your m4 rotation, and one from whatever the hell you want.

Right, that is a great idea. However, I actually have two other essentially indispensable letters (famous faculty with whom I did both research and subspecialty rotations in medicine) that essentially told me "I'll write you the best letter ever." That's why I'm sort of choosing either my core rotation letter or my sub-I letter, but preferably not both (which would take me to 5 letters, including my chair letter).

 

[rd31]

Would it be strange/concerning to PDs that I'm using my core rotation letter rather than my subI letter? Right now I'm leaning towards not using my subI letter at all; my other two letters in addition to my core letter are, as I said before, so strong that they're basically indispensable.

 

[CanIMakeIt]

What anyone cares about is a strong letter no matter who writes it. When programs receive more than 1000 applications (that is 3-4K letters), no matter what absurd rumors are at your school, no one really is going to sit there and match the letter writers to the rotations that you did. Just use the strongest letters you can get. Anything other than strong letters are a red flag not the scenario you are suggesting.