Letters of rec problems and # of schools

[meanderson]

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I'm taking the august mcat and want to apply to a good # of schools across the country(maybe 20). The problem is that my school *does not* have a letter of rec service, neither through the career center or the premed dept. We don't even have a premed committee that writes a letter.

Obviously the problem comes into play when I need to request letters of rec from 5 different people to send individially to 20 different schools. And of course....all of the letters won't be able to be sent at the same time because some of these schools will screen for secondaries and some won't. Some schools that I apply to I know I will have my lor's in by july/august well before my mcat scores come in....but other schools won't send out a secondary requesting LOR's until October. To make matters worse, I'm not in close proximity to many of the non-science letters and it would be a tremendous hassle trying to communicate when what letters needed to be sent and to where.

There just isn't any way I can expect 20 lor's to be sent by each person....I don't feel that is fair. Is there any valid commercial letter of rec service that med schools accept letters from? I don't think it is fair that I should be penalized relative to other applicants who just instruct their school's letter services where to send the letters to. Has anyone else been in the same situation(applying to lots of schools and not having a school letter service)? thanks......

 

[pocwana]

there are several independent LOR service collection companies that SDNers have used. just do a search.

 

[MD-2007-Gal]

Just to let you know, you can send schools LORs before they ask for them. My school's committee sends them out as soon as a student's AMCAS has been submitted and all of the letters have been received by the committee.

 

[manicmaven]

I actually had to do this. I asked 5 recommenders to send letters to each of my 16 schools. It bit. I knew all of them well, but it still made the secondaries a hassle. I'd use the professional service if possible.

If not, I simply made up a packet for each of them with my amcas, resume, sticky label addresses for each school, and stamps so that when I got a secondary, I could just email them and tell them to send that letter.

It still sucked because of how long it took, but it worked out in the end.

 

[Arginine]

Some schools strongly warn that they will throw away LORs if you send them before they are requested (i.e. schools that actually screen before they offer secondaries). For schools that don't screen for secondaries, you can have LORs sent as soon as your AMCAS has been transmitted.

 

[meanderson]

can someone list some of the independent companies they send out letters? I did a search and can't find any. thanks.....

 

[meanderson]

I searched *everywhere* online for any company that could serve as a letter service and couldn't find one. I'm beginning to think that they don't exist 🙁

 

[carrigallen]

just call a nearby school and have them handle the LOR's for you, if your school doesn't have a letter service. They will charge a fee anyway, but at least you will have a service. I'm sure a neighboring school would be willing to help out if your school doesn't have one. Ask for the career services department.

 

[Enkindu]

Check out the Interfolio website. They were recommended by my school's professional development office.