Letter of Interest

[ss2196]

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Which schools are known for sending you an II if you send them a letter of interest after submitting the secondary?

 

[JaxJax17]

No school is “known” to do this because if they were can you imagine how many LOI they would receive? Probably just as many as who applied. And from my understanding the schools that do respond more positively to LOI are usually post-interview

 

[theKingLT]

LOI's will matter at many schools this cycle but generally post-interview. I don't know of any that encourage pre-interview

 

[Goro]

Which schools are known for sending you an II if you send them a letter of interest after submitting the secondary?

Secondaries are often a tax on the Hopelessly optimistic, if not pathologically naive.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

LOI's will matter at many schools this cycle but generally post-interview. I don't know of any that encourage pre-interview

Some schools are receptive to ITAs if they would have offered an II to you anyway, but I'm not sure how you could even submit a genuine LOI prior to the interview unless you went to their undergrad maybe (or it's like HMS).

 

[theKingLT]

This is an assumption/prediction. Frankly the admissions people I have spoken to seem to not consider this cycle any different. At most schools LOI really dont have much impact at most schools
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(LOI posting counter #003)

You have 5 types of overlapping letters to that can be sent to a medical admission committee

Updates: new info you want to make the committee aware of. The information should be worthwhile and significant. Some schools encourage these buy many schools discourage or list policies not accepting updates.
Thank you: after interview
Letter of Interest: Typically, a post-interview but pre-decision letter that can reiterate and reinforce the school would be a good fit, usually with information you learned from your interview. This usually does not include a promise to attend if selected.
Letter of Intent: Typically written by applicants who have been accepted by one school but are on WL at another preferred school, outlining the reasons why you prefer it. There is little to scant evidence that these are particularly effective. It should be noted these are thought to have even less impact for those who are just on WL.

I will add one other type that is rarely used any more, the Reconsideration Letter: This is an applicant rejected pre-interview who has a large anomaly in their academic background that can be viewed through mitigating circumstances and asks to be reconsidered. With the non-screened/minimally pre-screened secondaries, there are plenty of opportunities for an applicant to express these circumstances.


A Letter of Interest that does not include a promise to attend but rather emphasizes a good fit from info you gathered at interview and/or Thank You post-interview, with worthwhile updates as part of either letter is "reasonable". Worthy or significant updates would be :

Paper accepted for publication
Invitation to present at conference
Winning a worthy award
Successful completion of some major project or event (eg summer research at NIH)
semester's worth of great grades

For the most part, starting a new position is not, though a promotion "might" be worth it. Schools want to accomplishments not simply a new opportunity. Applicants are often too optimistic on how these will be viewed when an adcom can see these as a stretch or simply padding.

Just to sum up , from both an adcom evaluation point of view and a processing/workflow of the thousands of applications, updates of any kind rarely have impact.

It is an "assumption", but one informed by admissions staff during interview days. I guess there may be a discrepancy with which schools we're talking about.

Out of 9 interviews I've had this cycle all but one (NYU, go figure, no concerns about yield there 😉) have encouraged open communication after the interview with 4 of 8 saying that they really want to hear more from their applicants because things are different this year. What this entails however, varies by school. 2 were very clear that if they don't hear anything from you by X month (before decisions) they will consider you as not wanting to attend the institution. This goes so far as to Mayo specifically outlining that they want a letter of intent if they are your top choice and a letter of interest if top 3. Other schools are less clear about what "open communication" entails, and others encourage it only if wait-listed or accepted. Overall, I would note that these interviews were largely among top 20 institutions where I imagine the majority of their students will end up with multiple acceptances. It's also hard to judge how much of what they are asking affects admissions of an individual or is just something they would like from all interviewed/waitlisted/accepted as a means of better estimating yield and filling their class correctly without the multiple acceptance report. I will go ahead and be heeding their advice and sending letters of interest to the ones that encourage it, but a letter of intent to me just seems a little far-fetched in general considering you don't even know aid package prior to sending

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

a letter of intent to me just seems a little far-fetched in general considering you don't even know aid package prior to sending

Not all of us care about aid packages lol.

 

[theKingLT]

Not all of us care about aid packages lol.

Haha yes very true, I should specify personally I don't see myself sending one. HPSP, MSTP, or a millionaire uncle on his deathbed would prompt a different approach

 

[mariposas905]

The main reason that schools seemed more inclined to LOI this cycle was the belief that there would be no acceptance "report" this cycle. However, that recently changed with the announcement that AMCAS would be rolling out a new tool module that would allow applicants to report acceptances (or rather allow AMCAS to release them) and advising schools to individually make policies to require applicants to have this. Thus, the acceptance reports will effectively be back and now a formal "intent to enroll" part of the system.

https://students-residents.aamc.org/advisors/amcas-tool-choosing-your-medical-school/

Is this available for the 2018-19 current cycle?

 

[LACMA]

Yup! it will be available in February, which is when the previous acceptance reports were first available

https://students-residents.aamc.org/advisors/amcas-tool-choosing-your-medical-school/

You said schools will be able to access info on applicants who were accepted to their school. Does this information include all the places that the applicant interviewed?

 

[theKingLT]

NO! I am talking only about acceptances.

I'm still a little confused. Maybe I misunderstood, but earlier from what you said I was under the impression that applicants could release specific acceptances to schools (ie. Let Mayo or all schools know that you were accepted to Cornell), but then the link to the AAMC table that you posted above says that schools just receive an aggregate number of how many people selected them as plan to enroll? How would they even enforce making applicants use the tool if their are no names attached to any data?

 

[theKingLT]

You misunderstood. You asked about interviews and this tool has nothing to do with reporting on interviews

1) medical schools report acceptance, rejection, WL, etc on each applicant to AMCAS
2) AMCAS tools allows applicants to voluntarily note which school they plan to enroll. Doing this will then release to all schools that accepted you information so they can aggregate numbers of all acceptances at other institutions.
3) AMCAS is advising medical school to adopt formal policies to require their applicants to use this tool.
4) thus school A can see that 15 of its acceptees also are holding at school C. I also believe this tool will allow schools to see all combinations so example
1 acceptee holds also at B, M, K
3 acceptee hold at C G K
2 acceptee at G K

On April 30 this info will identify acceptees and WL holders.

OK all clear now, thank you! I didn't realize this new tool would be as extensive as you say in #4! So then you all in admissions will actually have more info than before in putting together your class because you get all the info from previous years (minus specific names) and the additional "intent to enroll" info, correct? Meanwhile applicants are protected from "discrimination" for having other acceptances, which--whether it happened or not--was a concern of people in the past. I'm liking this system quite a lot actually