are there thoughts about when is the best time to send a LOI to Mayo? I know this may be different at other schools, but since Mayo is one school that highly values thank you notes/letter of intents, I wonder if it would be appropriate to send a LOI before a decision is made (I interviewed a few days ago) or whether it would be useless seeing as I have 0 acceptances right now lol. any thoughts appreciated! thank you 🙂
letter of intent/interest at Mayo
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Schools take LOIs with a grain of salt. Wait until you have an acceptance to school with equal or higher ranking than Mayo otherwise your words are meaningless.
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At top schools, LOIs tend to be exercises in stating the obvious. I mean wouldn’t want to go to Mayo?
I would reiterate your interest in the school as part of the thank you letter post interview but it doesn’t have to be a formal LOI. I think that @Goro said that most Adcoms treat letters of intent as lies.
I would reiterate your interest in the school as part of the thank you letter post interview but it doesn’t have to be a formal LOI. I think that @Goro said that most Adcoms treat letters of intent as lies.
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Before you know more, what's even the point? You have 18 IIs and counting. Without knowing where else you will be accepted, and what kind of money, if any, each school will be offering you, can you honestly say you even know what your intent is? More importantly, don't you think the schools know this?
Thank them for taking the time to meet with you. Reiterate a few things you like about the school. And leave it at that. Anything more will be BS, and they will know it.
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If yield protection was legit, wouldn’t it be impossible to get 18IIs? Yield protection confirmed sdn/Reddit myth
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Yield protection is not a thing at med schools -- it's a UG thing. At med schools it's resource protection, and it is indeed very real. Not so much, however, for highly desirable URM candidates. For them, the schools are doing what they need to do to go through the motions to show they are making the effort, without regard to any expectation of actually landing them.
For everyone else, it's real, and it's the magical explanation for why people receive IIs at Harvard, but not BU, or Penn, but not Jefferson, etc. Not a myth. Happens all over the place, EVERY cycle, and has been confirmed repeatedly by the adcoms on SDN.
i get that, for any other school i wouldn't be asking this question, but it seems like LOIs are very important for Mayo and a school-specific thing. I've seen on other threads that a LOI is nearly required for an A (link) and similar thoughts were reiterated amongst all the med students I spoke to at Mayo. thank you notes are practically mandatory at Mayo and I was told over and over to send updates, letters of interest/intent whenever I was ready to. so, while this obviously would not be the norm at other schools, I was wondering if Mayo would actually look positively on LOIs that are sent earlier, and whether I would be penalized for being overly conservative in waiting to send a LOI. obviously this is not the case at practically every other medical school in the country.
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My bad, thought loi was letter of intent not letter of interest. I don’t think it could hurt, but I still think that blending letter of interest with thank you letter would be best. I’d image with 18 interviews, they’ll be trying to do some convincing to get you there lol. Congrats on your successes thus far.
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Mayo is one of the few schools that does value a LOI and fairly frequent communication. I sent my LOI about a month after my interview. If you know in your heart of hearts that you want to go to Mayo (hell or high water), I would totally encourage you to send it. Just be prepared that you will be expected to follow through with it, regardless of your other offers. They also do not do rolling admissions and do not notify accepted applicants until late Feb at the earliest, so you have plenty of time. Feel free to DM if you have any questions.
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Any idea of other schools that highly value this kind of thing? I interviewed at my top choice, and thought this kind of stuff wasn't expected until you've been WL'ed (esp this early when II's are still coming out), but would consider writing a love letter if it might help
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I'm not super sure because Mayo was the only school that I applied to that actually did. I think that Jefferson also does, but I'm not 100% sure. Goro mentioned it somewhere on this site!
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It doesn't necessarily fit the vibe of the school I'm interested in and doesn't appear to be common in the school specific threads, so I might just hold off. I just hate the idea of all these inside tricks to get one more move up the ladder lol
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What is the penalty for not following through with a letter of intent? If I am lucky enough to get a Mayo A, but my state school follows with an offer that is a hundred thousand dollars cheaper, I would be a not to take it.
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If that's the case, you should not send a letter of intent. Send a letter of interest instead.
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Unless you’re from Texas, I don’t see this happening. But I agree with @Moko…proceed with caution
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Yeah, but then you supposedly won't get in. I'm not a big fan of anyone BSing their way through an admission cycle, but if a school is going to be petulant in demanding this type of groveling, then they get exactly what they deserve if people tell them what they apparently need to hear and then exercise their prerogative to later reneg on a non-binding commitment if a better opportunity comes along.
YMMV. I think it's obnoxious, but also would not allow some sense of ethics or integrity that is not shared by all (including Mayo by making this a condition of acceptance) to stand between me and an A that I want, if even to later cast aside.
Maybe they should either be a little less sensitive about their yield, or make changes to make themselves a destination that its chosen few routinely turn down other T10s to attend, rather than insisting on unenforceable, obsequious acts of insincere fealty. NYU managed to crack that code.
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Why? What's the consequence? Things change.
The fact that they pull this and don't have a yield near 100% indicates plenty of people lie to them every year, and there isn't a damn thing they can do to stop it. It's obnoxious for them to expect or demand letters of intent, and it would be crazy for any of us to not act in our own self interest, both before and after receiving an A.
OTOH, their 60% yield is probably a lot higher than it would be otherwise, given their location, so it's probably fair to say that the lying is something they tolerate to get what they want.
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It’s just really unprofessional to renege on promises. That’s true in any industry but especially medicine due it’s size and connectivity
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I agree 1,000,000%. Of course, it's also unethical, and oftentimes illegal, to abuse market power.
In this case, the school can apply whatever pressure it desires, and we in turn receive our first lesson in either subverting our self-interest to that of the powerful institution, or making unprofessional choices that serve ourselves. IMHO, it's the school that is acting unethically and unprofessionally by abusing its power to engage in this practice, for no reason other than to maybe manipulate its ranking a little bit by maybe goosing its yield from the mid 40s to around 60%, and anyone who acts "unprofessionally" in response is perfectly justified. Anyone who disagrees and wants to give up a scholarship at Penn or NYU or Hopkins to honor a non-binding commitment to spend 4 years as a full pay in Rochester is always free to do so. 😎
After all, it's still one of the best schools in the country, and they shouldn't have to twist anyone's arm to get them to attend. If they didn't do this at all, they'd still have absolutely no problem filling a class with people who really want to be there and have no better option. Of course, they'd have to admit more people to get there, but, so what? Their ranking might drop from 11 to 14?
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