Letter of Intent
Started by dmblue
Tell them you plan on getting through the first 2 years of medical school with your tuition wavier and then dropping the PhD part and going straight MD. Also mention that your sole goal is to make money.
/sarcasm
The main point you need to address is why, good God WHY you would decide to complete both degrees...why not just MD or PhD, what is it about your career goals that make the MD/PhD the best path for you, etc.
Good luck.
/sarcasm
The main point you need to address is why, good God WHY you would decide to complete both degrees...why not just MD or PhD, what is it about your career goals that make the MD/PhD the best path for you, etc.
Good luck.
That's what was covered in the interview (11 times nonetheless). i think the the purpose of the letter is to tell them that I will matriculate if accepted, why they should pick me, and why i am picking them. At this point i don't think i need to say why mdphd. If 11 answers + primary and secondary essays isn't enough to answer why mdphd, then that's ridiculous.
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I agree that for an LOI you should probably focus more on why you and that particular school are such a great match, rather than on why you're pursuing an MD/PhD in general.
dmargul, if you still need one, I can PM you a "letter of interest" that I wrote earlier in the year to a school that wound up accepting me..
dmargul, if you still need one, I can PM you a "letter of interest" that I wrote earlier in the year to a school that wound up accepting me..
that would be great, i'm not writing it for a few hours
Agreed. Focus on:
Is that school strong in your interest? Provide examples. Provide names of PIs you're strongly interested in working for (hopefully you interviewed with them).
Is that school in a particularly good location for you? Close to family? In a big city you wanna live in?
Does it provide excellent opportunities for other types of activities you'd like to get involved in?
Show how these things fit into what you've done as an undergrad.
It fits everything except the research lol. It's not that there aren't people doing what I want there. It's that I wasn't able to meet those people on my visit. I believe that there are plenty of opportunities for me there though.
Not meeting them on your visit is a bad sign. It could be something innocent like they were unavailable. It could also be that several of them are not eligible to be your graduate mentors because they have no funding, don't like MD/PhD students, or have abused grad students in the past.
Just make sure you meet with some people you're interested in at second look!
Just make sure you meet with some people you're interested in at second look!
Just out of curiosity, can you send a LOI before you're even invited to interview? If you do could that play into your favor of being selected for an interview? I always thought they were only for after you had interviewed.
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Lol...they were either showing off the department bc/ of a conference or out of town. I can't remember. This happened to me at every school.
What do you think they tell you when you request to interview with someone and that person sucks?
"They were unavailable to meet with you. Sorry about that."
Think they're gonna tell you that PI sucks?
Again, this isn't necessarily the case, but you need to be aware of it. Make sure you've actually met and seem to click with several labs you're interested in working with.
"They were unavailable to meet with you. Sorry about that."
Think they're gonna tell you that PI sucks?
Again, this isn't necessarily the case, but you need to be aware of it. Make sure you've actually met and seem to click with several labs you're interested in working with.
I've had them tell me that a PI hates MD/PhDs and they don't let him interview students anymore.
👍 to whoever told you that. Most admins will not say things like that. Admissions is a competition to make your program look the spiffiest/shiniest. Most pre-meds don't have a concept yet that a reasonable percentage of potential PIs can't or won't want them as grad students. Most programs don't want to be the only program to make that sound like the case, and thus there tends to be a collective hush about certain topics like that.
All of the faculty members in the BME department told me that both were doing something, and they told me that on second look I should DEFINITELY get speak to those people. The story was consistent and specific for each, I just don't remember what it was. Regardless there were some other labs that were not quite as exciting to me but definitely interesting and productive.
