Letter of Intent guidelines

[amoxicillin_resistant]

Hello, I am wondering if there are any good guidelines to LOIs, as I am considering sending some to schools who have not responded back to me post secondaries. Granted, its still pretty early into the application cycle but I am getting a bit worried as I have not heard back from any schools

For LOIs, what kind of content should I enter? I was thinking something along the lines of:

1. Why I am so interested in their school
2. What I am doing currently in order to improve my application for their school

Anything else I should add? Any advice is much appreciated 🙂

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[Med Ed]

A letter of intent is sent to one school, and expresses the intent to matriculate at that particular school (above all others) if accepted.

You are more likely referring to something along the lines of a letter of interest/update. A few things to consider:

1. You signaled your interest to each school when you submitted your primary and then secondary applications. What more can reasonably be said?
2. Do you have anything substantial to update? While some of your current activities and accomplishments may be of interest to schools (like publishing a manuscript in an indexed, peer-reviewed journal), your application for this cycle has already been submitted.
3. Every year we have threads from applicants who realize after-the-fact that they sent their LOIs too early, leaving them with nothing when we get to a later, even higher-stakes phase of the admissions cycle. Waiting is tough, but patience is a virtue.

 

[amoxicillin_resistant]

A letter of intent is sent to one school, and expresses the intent to matriculate at that particular school (above all others) if accepted.

You are more likely referring to something along the lines of a letter of interest/update. A few things to consider:

1. You signaled your interest to each school when you submitted your primary and then secondary applications. What more can reasonably be said?
2. Do you have anything substantial to update? While some of your current activities and accomplishments may be of interest to schools (like publishing a manuscript in an indexed, peer-reviewed journal), your application for this cycle has already been submitted.
3. Every year we have threads from applicants who realize after-the-fact that they sent their LOIs too early, leaving them with nothing when we get to a later, even higher-stakes phase of the admissions cycle. Waiting is tough, but patience is a virtue.

yes I meant to say letter of interest haha

thank you for the things to consider! I definately do think i might be a bit on edge, but it is true that it is still early on in the admissions proccess.

 

[cj_cregg]

Waaaayyyy too early to be submitting LOIs.

From the school side: The medical school application process moves much more slowly than the undergrad process. Remember that schools have thousands of applications reviewed by a few dozen people. This takes months. Your application may not even be fully reviewed yet. Even when it has been, they may put you in the "maybe interview later" pile, and an update may not affect this. Back in my day I submitted in the first week and got interview invites as late as April. The schools already know you are interested because you chose to submit an application and have not withdrawn it. You do not need to remind them. Some schools do not even accept updates/LOIs so be attentive to this as well.

From your side: Your question when deciding to submit an update should be: will this add to my application enough that it could be the difference between getting interviewed/accepted or not? I highly doubt most applicants achieve something to this level between June and September.

Be patient! This is a long process and there is not much you can do to change the outcome once you have submitted your app. Do something fun while you're waiting!

 

[Mr.Smile12]

When it's time, read

Are You Ready for Commitment? When and How to Write a Letter of Intent - SDN

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