Letters of Recommendation for Residency

[WiseGuy1]

So when exactly are students supposed to request their letters of recommendation?

I have always heard that unless you just felt like you really impressed your attending during a clerkship during MS3, you don't generally ask for letters during that time.

My school recently told us that students generally need to ask for their letters by July. I was always under the impression that students asked for their letters during/after their AI's during fourth year, but we don't finish MS3 until end of June.

Are most students really asking for letters from people they did their MS3 clerkships with? What if you had your desired specialty clerkship first? Kind of hard to impress as a newly minted third year. Also, isn't it kind of hard to get to know three potential letter writers during a single clerkship?

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[drizzt3117]

My two non-rads letters were both from surgeons that I worked with during my 2 months of surgery in 3rd year. It was towards the end of m3.

So when exactly are students supposed to request their letters of recommendation?

I have always heard that unless you just felt like you really impressed your attending during a clerkship during MS3, you don't generally ask for letters during that time.

My school recently told us that students generally need to ask for their letters by July. I was always under the impression that students asked for their letters during/after their AI's during fourth year, but we don't finish MS3 until end of June.

Are most students really asking for letters from people they did their MS3 clerkships with? What if you had your desired specialty clerkship first? Kind of hard to impress as a newly minted third year. Also, isn't it kind of hard to get to know three potential letter writers during a single clerkship?

 

[turkeyjerky]

You're right that it's hard to impress on your first clerkship--that's one of the reasons the standard advice is not to start w/ what you want to go into.

You most definitely should ask attendings soon after your clerkship for a LOR. (By this, I mean either one of the last days of the rotation in person, or w/in 1-2 weeks of the last day via email w/ an offer to meet in person). Remember, there is no limit to the number of LORs you can collect--your goal really should be to stockpile a ton of them from third year, and then pick out what you think will be the best ones. (If your deans office is cool, they might help you out w/ this by tipping you off to any sub-par ones.) One thing to remember is that all academic attendings are very used to being asked for, and writing, recommendation letters. Another thing to keep in mind, is that attendings will request a CV and personal statement to help them write the letter, so it would be advisable to put these together early in 3rd year (PS does not need to be same as the one you will actually use for your application). If you don't know what specialty you're applying for, then ask the letter writer to keep it specialty neutral.

You do not want to wait until August to request a LOR--this will seriously delay your application submission. Goal is to submit your eras app on Sept 1st. Keep that date in mind over the next year, and remember letters will often take a min. of 8 weeks to be written.