Letter of Recommendation without Letterhead or Signature.

[Coleworld]

I have one professor who submitted an updated letter of recommendation without the letterhead and without signature, after I reminded them multiple times, and made it so interfolio would verify. Tragically, they were still able to send in a letter without either, after they did one with both last year (I'm speechless).

Anyways I only found this out because TMDSAS already told me this, otherwise I'd have never found out. The issue is I already submitted this letter to all the schools I applied to via amcas, so what are the consequences of this and how are letters like that viewed by adcoms? I don't think I can remove this letter from amcas so I'm adding this prof's old recommendation letter to my application with "with Letterhead" included in his name to all of my schools. Would this fix the issue?

It's a major pain because most of the time this is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE for applicants to check bc LORs are confidential, and right now I'm just doing my best to remedy this situation. I really have to wonder how many applicants get screwed over by ridiculous **** like this each year.

@gyngyn
@LizzyM

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[Coleworld]

For future reference, you can call interfolio and they can verify that the letter has a signature and letterhead before sending them out. Unfortunately you have already sent out your letters. I hope everything works out for you.

:/ I did that and it still got through somehow, I'm speechless. Thanks for the best wishes, I'm going to call amcas.

 

[Coleworld]

This problem actually has a happy ending and I figured I'd post it for anyone who has this awful annoying issue in the future and finds this:
I called amcas and they said if I upload the old letter of recommendation it'll automatically replace the new one, so just do that . Now I'm just contacting the nearly impossible to reach recommender and seeing if I can get him to update his new letter on the letterhead and sign it, and I'm hoping for this best.

 

[mehc012]

This problem actually has a happy ending and I figured I'd post it for anyone who has this awful annoying issue in the future and finds this:
I called amcas and they said if I upload the old letter of recommendation it'll automatically replace the new one, so just do that . Now I'm just contacting the nearly impossible to reach recommender and seeing if I can get him to update his new letter on the letterhead and sign it, and I'm hoping for this best.

That's really great to hear, thanks for updating us!

 

[Coleworld]

That's really great to hear, thanks for updating us!

No Problemo . I don't want anyone to go through this stuff without a solution. This process is stressful enough without having to worry about this sort of stuff, or getting screwed over by a technicality like this.

One more tip:
If you have anyway of checking with your writers to personally confirm they put it on the letterhead and signed it, do that, preferably in-person, so if they're willing they could even physically confirm.

 

[Coleworld]

I have another letter of recommendation question:
Is it worth including a whacky comical letter from a professor and how would adcoms perceive it? It's one of the ones I've seen, fortunately. It's from a math professor in a class I did excellent in, and this guy says stuff like "Coleworld is not an evil genius".