Letter of Recommendation Question!

[nyroadrunner]

Hi all! Quick question: Ive been an assistant in a dental office(s) throughout dental school. For my GPR app, I'd like to include a letter of rec from my time here. Is it completely unethical/gross for my family to write me a letter of recommendation.

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[OMSDoc]

Family ties in dentistry (child/grandchild/niece/nephew) are a positive in specialty application. It shows that you are familiar with the requirements of the profession. It is neither unethical nor gross for him to write you a letter of recommendation.

I do know of an instance where this could have been a negative, when the uncle had sued the school and a classmate when the uncle was a student. This applicant did not ask the uncle to write a letter.

I assume that you have written about this in any personal statement; that you have been an assistant in your uncle's practice. I wrote about my working for my father in OMS.

I would leave it up to your uncle to disclose your relationship, but it would be better if he did so that it didn't look unusual if it came up. You could ask him to make that disclosure.

 

[Traag]

Absolutely do not do this. If I came across an application with a family member LoR, I'd laugh my ass off and throw the whole app in the trash immediately.

You've gone through the entirety of dental school and don't know a dentist or professor willing to write you a letter? 90% of the purpose of a letter of rec is to demonstrate you're able to get someone unbiased to vouch for you.

That doesn't mean your time as an assistant is wasted. You can include it in your application or your personal statement. But even then, you're applying for a GPR... What real relevance does working as an assistant have? This isn't your dental school app where you're trying to prove you've had exposure to the field.

 

[OMSDoc]

I respectfully disagree. Any experience is helpful.

If you are in a position to make these decisions, you should say so at the top of your post.

 

[Traag]

I respectfully disagree. Any experience is helpful.

If you are in a position to make these decisions, you should say so at the top of your post.

I should clarify that I agree that the experience itself is helpful. Depending on the time investment, scope of procedures done, and how it all led to a desire for additional GPR training, it could be a huge benefit as a personal statement topic or as a CV highlight.

With that said, I don't think that assisting a family member is a good basis for a recommendation alone. Every other applicant is going to have letters from faculty detailing their ability to perform dentistry themselves, not how well they assist others doing it.

A LoR from a family member is going to hurt more than it helps. For one thing, the clear bias is going to make anything actually written in the letter regarding the OP's positive attributes meaningless. More importantly, it's taking up a spot for a very limited number of letters that can be submitted. If I was a program director (and I'm not, but you can be sure there are people out there that share this opinion), I would wonder why a family member was chosen for one of the LoRs when there's such an obvious conflict of interest. Every dental student interacts with dozens of faculty members or non-relative dentists during school - would none of them vouch for this applicant? Alternatively, was the applicant unwillingly to seek these people out, and if so, why? I think it also raises questions about professionalism since family LoRs are not even accepted for job or undergraduate applications, and this is much higher level.

 

[OMSDoc]

Good points, but I think the reviewers are smart enough to sort it out.

Having said that, I did not ask my dad to write me a recommendation letter.

Surely, there is someone else you could ask?

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I wouldn't. Surely you have made one other professional connection to replace his letter.

 

[Utdarsenal]

What if your parent is highly respected in his/her field or amongst peers? I think that would change things..

 

[omsoms]

I agree with the point of others. It’s hard for me as someone who’s interviewed students and residents in the past to get passed the family member LOR.

 

[caffeine jitters]

Unsure if I'm hijacking the thread, but as a corollary, what's the verdict on having a resident write a LOR for you?

 

[Traag]

Unsure if I'm hijacking the thread, but as a corollary, what's the verdict on having a resident write a LOR for you?

There's nothing wrong with it per se but you should consider two things. 1) The writer's position/role/experience does carry weight. For example, your faculty members are in a position to comment on your quality and attributes (hopefully positively) compared to your peers. Having a faculty member say "I've taught for 30 years and XXX is in the top 5% of students I've had the privilege to know" is going to be meaningful. 2) Letters are typically going to include the capacity in which the writer knows you and how the qualities they've witnessed prove you're a good person/applicant/whatever.

tl;dr don't have your buddy who's a year older than you write something about how your technique chugging a natty lite demonstrates resilience in the face of adversity. Residents are dentists, and thus can write LoRs, but may not necessarily be the best option.

 

[caffeine jitters]

There's nothing wrong with it per se but you should consider two things. 1) The writer's position/role/experience does carry weight. For example, your faculty members are in a position to comment on your quality and attributes (hopefully positively) compared to your peers. Having a faculty member say "I've taught for 30 years and XXX is in the top 5% of students I've had the privilege to know" is going to be meaningful. 2) Letters are typically going to include the capacity in which the writer knows you and how the qualities they've witnessed prove you're a good person/applicant/whatever.

tl;dr don't have your buddy who's a year older than you write something about how your technique chugging a natty lite demonstrates resilience in the face of adversity. Residents are dentists, and thus can write LoRs, but may not necessarily be the best option.

I guess I was asking along the lines of research experience. I feel that in a good portion of cases, there will be several people working on a research assignment with a PI faculty member kind of going along for the ride. So, if a resident were one of the people on that research team, I would think they'd be able to speak to the student's work ethic better than the PI that wasn't paying attention as closely.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I usually ask for letters of rec in person (I hate the phone call / email business when it comes to something personal like this). What is the best way to ask faculty members for residency? Email them your statement and CV and say "If you would like to talk more feel free to call me?" Or no need to provide contact info