Letter of Recommendation Lingo

[Sarcoidosis]

I had a question about the type of letters that are good to have...

I understand certain keywords and statements are well known among program directors which are meant to be a sign of a mediocre letter to a strong letter...

I was wondering about the statement...

"has great potential to be an excellent physician"

Is this one of those statements that are known among the admission committee as some sort of a secret communication...

Or am I just being paranoid...

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[NotAProgDirector]

You are being paranoid.

There really isn't a code, except in MSPE's where the appendix clearly tells you what a "code word" means.

 

[Chakrabs]

The pinnacle is probably something along the lines of "I really want *mr medical student* for our program and would hate to see him go elsewhere". After that, you're going to have to parse between the lines.

 

[Sol Rosenberg]

I had a question about the type of letters that are good to have...

I understand certain keywords and statements are well known among program directors which are meant to be a sign of a mediocre letter to a strong letter...

I was wondering about the statement...

"has great potential to be an excellent physician"

Is this one of those statements that are known among the admission committee as some sort of a secret communication...

Or am I just being paranoid...

All of my letters ended with phrases like "will highly consider for our program," "will strongly consider for our program," or "will recruit to our program." I figured "will recruit..." was the best code phrase, but who knows.

 

[Sarcoidosis]

Thanks... I was getting thrown off by the word potential....

Everyone has a potential to be a great physician...

 

[splik]

ahem... no they don't. I think it would be premature depending on what level you were at to say 'excellent physician'. I know these US letters like to embellish things a bit, but it all gets meaningless if you said for example an intern was an excellent physician. The intern might be great, possibly better than some of the senior residents but they are not going to be at the level of someone who has much more experience is can be regarded as an excellent physician, but can certainly show that potential through their current performance. One of my letters said the same 'potential thing' with rgards to physician, another said 'potential to be a leader in his field'.Just as not everyone has the potential to be a leader (though you wouldn't think so if you studied leadership theory or read those can-do approach books), and not everyone has the potential to be a physician, not everyone has the potential to be an excellent physician. Some people are just lazy, disorganized, uncaring, and the biggest impediment of all - indecisive.

 

[sirenomelia]

FWIW an admin in my med school confided that the deans letter was coded:

Outstanding- top 10%/ AOA
Excellent- top 20%
Very good- top 1/3
good- top 1/2
competent- erbody else

 

[gutonc]

FWIW an admin in my med school confided that the deans letter was coded:

Outstanding- top 10%/ AOA
Excellent- top 20%
Very good- top 1/3
good- top 1/2
competent- erbody else

This is more or less public knowledge. But it does not relate to a standard LOR.

 

[Sarcoidosis]

Thanks, it seems obvious now that you listed it. But I don't think I would have guessed that.

 

[BADMD]

FWIW an admin in my med school confided that the deans letter was coded:

Outstanding- top 10%/ AOA
Excellent- top 20%
Very good- top 1/3
good- top 1/2
competent- erbody else

I wouldn't say they confided all that much in you. All letters that I have seen include a paragraph that defines what each term means. I believe the key is pretty much required to have a conforming letter.

 

[Mr hawkings]

May i ask a dumb Q? I heard that it was generally a good idea to waive your right to see your recs. From what i'm seeing in this thread, it sounds like the dean's letter is not treated the same way and you will see what is in it regardless. I'm i right?
I guess its not like you can choose to not submit it if you dont like it

 

[twright]

May i ask a dumb Q? I heard that it was generally a good idea to waive your right to see your recs. From what i'm seeing in this thread, it sounds like the dean's letter is not treated the same way and you will see what is in it regardless. I'm i right?
I guess its not like you can choose to not submit it if you dont like it

In general, your student dean office will have one of your deans review the bulk of the letter with you. At 3 of the medical schools where I am familiar with this process, they generally mask the final paragraph (e.g., "Jenna is an outstanding candidate") but the rest of it is available for viewing. You can correct gross mischaracterizations but otherwise do not have a lot of control. And no, you cannot refuse to release the dean's letter.

With regards to your letters of recommendation, yes, you should waive your right to see your recommendations.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

FWIW an admin in my med school confided that the deans letter was coded:

Outstanding- top 10%/ AOA
Excellent- top 20%
Very good- top 1/3
good- top 1/2
competent- erbody else

Every school's classification system is different. Do not generalize this to other schools.

Of note, this would be a VERY atypical scheme. "Competent" is usually the term applied to the bottom 1-5% -- those that almost failed out but passed. I have never seen an MSPE where "competent" was applied to a large group.

Also, as mentioned, MSPE's tell us specifically what the various words mean, so there are no secrets here.

 

[gutonc]

May i ask a dumb Q? I heard that it was generally a good idea to waive your right to see your recs. From what i'm seeing in this thread, it sounds like the dean's letter is not treated the same way and you will see what is in it regardless. I'm i right?
I guess its not like you can choose to not submit it if you dont like it

Most schools give you a chance to review your MSPE for facts. You can challenge anything you don't like in it but they're not required to change it as long as it's true.

An LOR that you didn't waive your right to see is wasted.

 

[Sol Rosenberg]

Most schools give you a chance to review your MSPE for facts. You can challenge anything you don't like in it but they're not required to change it as long as it's true.

An LOR that you didn't waive your right to see is wasted.

In 99+% of the cases, I agree with you; however, I ran into a situation where not waiving helped me out. I had done an away rotation in September, and I wanted a letter from that rotation. My student affairs office had a cutoff of the 1st or 2nd week of October for all letters to be in. When it became obvious that the person writing me the letter couldn't make the deadline, I resent the ERAS from reserving my right to see the letter, had him send it to ME when it was done, and I forwarded it to programs with an explanation. I suppose I could've asked my LOR writer to do the same and still waive my right to see it, but I didn't think that that would go over well.

Did it carry the same weight as my other "official" (that I waived the right to see, but ended up seeing anyway along the interview trail) LORs? I dunno. And if not, was it better to have the extra LOR vs not have it (I already had 3 "official" LORs)? Again, I dunno. I got asked about it during 1 interview, and the interviewer seemed to understand the issue and why I did it.

Anyway, not sure why I felt the need to comment, but just thought I'd share an interesting situation where not waiving came in handy.

 

[Oxer45]

May i ask a dumb Q? I heard that it was generally a good idea to waive your right to see your recs. From what i'm seeing in this thread, it sounds like the dean's letter is not treated the same way and you will see what is in it regardless. I'm i right?
I guess its not like you can choose to not submit it if you dont like it

Don't waive your right to see letters. Its not that people will write bad things in a LOR, but sometimes people will write a one small paragraph letter (short on time), which shows they really didnt know you. I asked for more letters than I needed and choose the best ones.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

Don't waive your right to see letters. Its not that people will write bad things in a LOR, but sometimes people will write a one small paragraph letter (short on time), which shows they really didnt know you. I asked for more letters than I needed and choose the best ones.

There isn't a really right answer. Although I should theoretically "believe" a letter that was waived more than one that wasn't, I can't say that there really is much of a difference. That being said, the vast majority of people waive their rights, so not doing so makes your letters stand out in a bad way. You can get the best of both worlds if you're at a US med school -- waive your rights, and the letters are returned to the dean of students office. Most dean's offices will review your letters for you (you don't get to see them) and tell you if there's a letter you shouldn't use (because it's short, etc).

 

[3dtp]

There isn't a really right answer. Although I should theoretically "believe" a letter that was waived more than one that wasn't, I can't say that there really is much of a difference. That being said, the vast majority of people waive their rights, so not doing so makes your letters stand out in a bad way. You can get the best of both worlds if you're at a US med school -- waive your rights, and the letters are returned to the dean of students office. Most dean's offices will review your letters for you (you don't get to see them) and tell you if there's a letter you shouldn't use (because it's short, etc).

Waiving a right to see a letter is common practice. All of my writers provided me with a copy, despite my waiving that right. I was told by one PD that I had the best letters he'd ever seen. I think you're probably correct in that there is not much of a difference

So, what does waiving the right to see a letter really do? Perhaps all should refused to waive, then it is moot. I think the underlying assumption is that a letter writer will be more "candid" if she/he knows that the candidate will never know what she/he wrote. I'm not sure this is valid, and it does raise another troubling stickpoint: Would you trust someone who would not be honest to your face with the task of recommending you, with anonymity?

Perhaps all should refuse to waive, then the playing field is level and the candidates can then choose the letters they wish to send. For letters I am asked to write, I provide the candidate a copy before I send it.

 

[Socrates25]

As a chief resident who is heavily involved in recruiting, I'd estimate that about 75% of letters sound the same and really dont provide any value to help you select people. Most of the time they just list generic qualities of the student but they dont sound that excited about the person. Its critical to pick faculty who KNOW YOU WELL, not just random faculty who worked with you for a few weeks intermittently.

The ones that stick out use language like the ones listed below:

"Mr X is one of the top medical students I have ever worked with"

"Mr X is in the top z% of students I have worked with"

"We are recruiting him heavily to our program"

"We tried to talk him out of applying elsewhere so we could keep him"

Letters from Carribean schools tend to have a lot of exaggeration, whereas US letters tend to be more objective IMHO.

Believe it or not, I actually got a Carribean letter on my desk that had the statement "this student is better than many attending physicians in his field" and nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

 

[Mr hawkings]

Believe it or not, I actually got a Carribean letter on my desk that had the statement "this student is better than many attending physicians in his field" and nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

Heres the Q. Where did this person end up on your rank list?

 

[Handinhand]

Sorry for the bump, but I wanted to know if these "codes" are still a thing -- and how closely looked at they are?

 

[Crayola227]

All the above advice I liked I thouht had something to it for the most part, although it may be hard to recognize where it was sarcastic and evil and I thought it was funny.

 

[Handinhand]

All the above advice I liked I thouht had something to it for the most part, although it may be hard to recognize where it was sarcastic and evil and I thought it was funny.

I guess I was more questioning the language used in the dean's letter, and if it's still relevant?

My summary paragraph uses excellent a lot, but never outstanding. I was AOA though, and one of the sentences basically says "X was an excellent student who received honors in all of his clinical rotations" which I know very few other people achieved as well.

 

[dozitgetchahi]

In general, your student dean office will have one of your deans review the bulk of the letter with you. At 3 of the medical schools where I am familiar with this process, they generally mask the final paragraph (e.g., "Jenna is an outstanding candidate") but the rest of it is available for viewing. You can correct gross mischaracterizations but otherwise do not have a lot of control. And no, you cannot refuse to release the dean's letter.

With regards to your letters of recommendation, yes, you should waive your right to see your recommendations.

What I find interesting is that they mask the most important part - but (naturally) you can't refuse to release the letter anyway.

Given this, why the hell does it matter if you see that part or not?

I guess I just roll my eyes as I go through this again for fellowship - the rec letters are just the silliest and (in many ways) most useless part of the application, and yet they're shrouded in so many layers of secrecy and nonsense.

 

[Raryn]

I guess I was more questioning the language used in the dean's letter, and if it's still relevant?

My summary paragraph uses excellent a lot, but never outstanding. I was AOA though, and one of the sentences basically says "X was an excellent student who received honors in all of his clinical rotations" which I know very few other people achieved as well.

The code for dean's letters is publicly available and varies from school to school. Some of them don't even have an appendix defining details.

See http://www.jacr.org/cms/attachment/2014568276/2036036500/mmc1.doc and look your own school up if you're curious. It's the supplement from http://www.jacr.org/article/S1546-1440(13)00767-9/abstract which is an interesting article.

My school never hid our descriptor from us (as in we could see it on the draft dean's letter), but they never told us what the words meant... and actually flat out lied and said we weren't ranked during various class meetings.