Letter of intent

[monijah]

Maybe I missed something, but what are these letters of intent that everyone is talking about?

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[Realest]

Letters of intent can be written to your top choice school if you are waitlisted. They can significantly increase your chances of being accepted at some schools. You basically tell them that their school is your first choice, and if accepted, you will go there. Do not try and play them for a fool though by writing these letters to more than one school - adcoms communicate and if they find out, your may ruin your chance of getting into any school at all.

 

[internet]

Letters of intent can be written to your top choice school if you are waitlisted. They can significantly increase your chances of being accepted at some schools. You basically tell them that their school is your first choice, and if accepted, you will go there. Do not try and play them for a fool though by writing these letters to more than one school - adcoms communicate and if they find out, your may ruin your chance of getting into any school at all.

how do we know that "adcoms communicate"? do they know what schools you've interview at? or been accepted to?

 

[OSUdoc08]

how do we know that "adcoms communicate"? do they know what schools you've interview at? or been accepted to?

They don't. It is a myth. Also, a phone call to the school is much more effective than a letter. However, realize that neither may do any good.

 

[DrHuang]

are letters of intent only if ur waitlisted or can u send them after the interview and the school is ur 1st choice?

 

[gomizzou]

Michigan said that ~March 15 schools that you have been accepted to will know about the other ones; this is so that competitive scholarship offers can be made depending on where you have been accepted. I am not sure if it is at the same time or if it is around May 15 that schools that you are waitlisted at know about the schools you have been accepted at; this is so that the school that you are waitlisted at can call the accepted school(s) and tell them as a courtesy that you are being taken off the waitlist.

I'm not sure whether or not adcoms have the time to call each other and let them know they both received a letter of intent from the same candidate, but it would really suck if someone got caught doing that.

 

[Realest]

You better believe that adcoms communicate. They don't have time to check up on the nitty gritty about every student, but the top schools do discuss the status of those applicants that are most coveted. I have been told this not only by current medical students that work with admissions committees, but advisors as well. A letter of intent is not an update or a thank-you. It is a very serious statement that you should write only after considering all schools and which among them is truly your first choice. It is not officially binding, but you are basically telling a school that if accepted, you will withdraw your app from all other schools. So if you are a top student writing to a top school, you can imagine that they will call up other adcoms to which you have applied to check on where you stand with them. Harvard and Hopkins keep their lines open, and I have *heard* that other top tier schools also communicate. State schools (within the same state, like SUNYs) will communicate. I would suspect, but I do not know, that schools ranked in the same tier communicate. I wouldn't worry about this though because the information they exchange is likely to be limited to your status at that school.

Somebody said that an LOI will not help as much as a phone call. I don't know if this is true, but frankly if you are writing an LOI to a school I would think that you would also call them up a couple of times. I have also been debating whether to write mine before or after decisions are mailed out, but in general people write them after they are waitlisted. It depends on the school, but can LOI carry a lot of weight. It may be the only thing that distinguishes you from all the other applicants on the waitlist, so put some thought into it.

 

[sunsweet]

They don't. It is a myth. Also, a phone call to the school is much more effective than a letter. However, realize that neither may do any good.

What do you say on the phone? I've called a few schools to check my status and see if there's anything else I can do, but I can't really think of anything else to say that will actually help me. We're only talking to the secretaries and some of them just say they don't do status checks on the phone and don't even take my name.