General Admissions & OTCAS Letters of recommendation advice. About to leave job.

[mahaloOT]

Hi everyone,

I am about to leave my job to focus on my prerequisites for OT school. My superior is someone I wanted to ask a LOR from. I have already mentioned it in passing last year. I won't be applying for OT school or a while (perhaps another year/cycle) since it will take some time for me to finish all my prerequisites. How should I go about asking for a LOR? Should I wait until I am ready to apply to OT school to ask or should I ask now?

Another big question is that if I do ask for a letter now and send it through OTCAS, will it stay in my OTCAS account even if I don't submit my application for two cycles or does the account get wiped clean (LORS are gone and I would have to ask again for a LORS) when the cycle ends?

If anyone has any insight, I would truly appreciate it. I don't know who to ask for advice so I am here. Thank you in advance.

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[msnyd94]

Hi everyone,

I am about to leave my job to focus on my prerequisites for OT school. My superior is someone I wanted to ask a LOR from. I have already mentioned it in passing last year. I won't be applying for OT school or a while (perhaps another year/cycle) since it will take some time for me to finish all my prerequisites. How should I go about asking for a LOR? Should I wait until I am ready to apply to OT school to ask or should I ask now?

Another big question is that if I do ask for a letter now and send it through OTCAS, will it stay in my OTCAS account even if I don't submit my application for two cycles or does the account get wiped clean (LORS are gone and I would have to ask again for a LORS) when the cycle ends?

If anyone has any insight, I would truly appreciate it. I don't know who to ask for advice so I am here. Thank you in advance.

I just went through this! Wait until the cycle for which you are applying opens. I made the mistake of asking for my LORS back in May. OTCAS sends them a link to submit the LOR directly, and all of them did within a month of me asking. However, all of these were scrubbed on July 18th and I had to re-ask all of them. I would ask about a month before the next cycle opens and inform them that they will be getting a link from OTCAS on whatever date the new cycle opens. I hope this helps!

 

[mahaloOT]

I just went through this! Wait until the cycle for which you are applying opens. I made the mistake of asking for my LORS back in May. OTCAS sends them a link to submit the LOR directly, and all of them did within a month of me asking. However, all of these were scrubbed on July 18th and I had to re-ask all of them. I would ask about a month before the next cycle opens and inform them that they will be getting a link from OTCAS on whatever date the new cycle opens. I hope this helps!

Thank you SO much for your reply! This was exactly the answer I was looking for. I truly appreciate your insight, especially having gone through what I'm going through. Thank you again! Cheers and good luck to you!

 

[RUNNING_OT]

I agree with @msnyd94. Definitely wait until you're about to apply. Before leaving just bring up the fact that even though you are leaving, you are still interested in a LOR from them when the time comes.