Letters of Recommendation

[TongueFuCal]

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As a rule of thumb, is there a set # of LOR's that one should try to get for the application process?

i.e. 2 from teachers, 2 from vets, 2 personal?

And does each school give different amounts of consideration to that part of the application?

Thanks in advance.

 

[banditalfi]

you're only allowed to have three, so you need to choose wisely... definitely get a vet in there, but you want people who know you well.

some schools also require LORs from every animal experience you've listed on your application, but those must be sent to the school directly. other schools refuse to accept more than three LORs.

 

[TongueFuCal]

Ok thanks. Is there a quick way to search each school I'm looking at to see what their requirements are? When the Dean from UF visited us he said that if your GPA is lower you'd want to consider 2 from teachers, but that would leave just one from experience and no personal letters.

And without sounding at all arrogant (honestly) I also ask because for UPenn and Cornell I have some really good sources for a letter (3 for penn, 1 for cornell) and I need to figure out which to give precedence to.

Thanks again!

 

[TractorKid]

I know for UPenn that one of your LORs needs to come from a "scientific academic source", ie: one of your professors

 

[TongueFuCal]

I'd make sure I had one of my professors regardless🙂 I'd need that for sure haha. I guess that leaves either 2 vet recommendations or in the case of upenn and cornell one vet one alum.

 

[banditalfi]

i really wouldn't weigh where the vets went to school all that much. one of my LORs was from a penn grad, the other got his degree in italy.

that being said, cornell requires a rec from every experience you list, so that's when i threw in my 4-h rec and another penn grad.

 

[Angelo84]

Ok thanks. Is there a quick way to search each school I'm looking at to see what their requirements are? When the Dean from UF visited us he said that if your GPA is lower you'd want to consider 2 from teachers, but that would leave just one from experience and no personal letters.

And without sounding at all arrogant (honestly) I also ask because for UPenn and Cornell I have some really good sources for a letter (3 for penn, 1 for cornell) and I need to figure out which to give precedence to.

Thanks again!

Penn just uses the ones you put in VMCAS. Cornell wants letter from anyone you had experience with--the form is in the supplemental. Have fun tracking people down!

For VMCAS you can do only three electronically and then any extras must be paper. Some schools will not look at any extra so chose carefully! I did two professor, two vet (one large one small animal).

 

[TongueFuCal]

Ok, so I assume that means Cornell accepts more than just 3? Let's say I have 3 previous vets I worked with, do those three count as one or do I need three others beside that? Haha I'm sure it's easier than I'm making it, thanks for explaining.

 

[TongueFuCal]

OK so VMCAS does 3, and you had an extra paper one? I guess I'd have to submit each school-specific LOR separately then as the Penn alum would write for Penn and wouldn't matter for Cornell.

Thanks/

 

[Rebeki]

Just to clarify, Cornell requires a letter from each of your animal experiences or they won't consider that experience in your app.

On a personal note, that is one of the main the reasons I didn't apply to Cornell. I'm non-trad and going back 5-6 years to find people who may or may not still be employed at the places I worked or who don't really remember me that well just really turned me off.

I think your best bet is to decide which schools you want to apply to and find out what each requires.

 

[Steelmagghia]

Just to clarify, Cornell requires a letter from each of your animal experiences or they won't consider that experience in your app.

On a personal note, that is one of the main the reasons I didn't apply to Cornell. I'm non-trad and going back 5-6 years to find people who may or may not still be employed at the places I worked or who don't really remember me that well just really turned me off.

I think your best bet is to decide which schools you want to apply to and find out what each requires.

I applied to Cornell, but one of my vet experiences wasn't even listed for that reason. I'm not nontrad, but some of my vet experience is from volunteering in high school. The vet's office doesn't keep track of volunteers at all and even if I did ask them, they really couldn't comment much on my performance during my volunteering.

Definitely look at the schools' separate sites AND VMCAS.

 

[VetMed555]

I think they want to see you in different settings. I chose a DVM I worked with for 3 years, a research DVM at one of the schools I applied ( I did my research internship there), and my academic advisor (also a department head, who knew me very well). That way they had academic, research, and clinical references. I think it worked out very well for me.

Oh, and I did have a fourth one *just in case*. It was my biology professor (also department head). His was also outstanding, so I snail-mailed it to VMCAS anyway. I'm not sure whether they sent it to all 4 schools or not though.

 

[VAgirl]

Just to clarify, Cornell requires a letter from each of your animal experiences or they won't consider that experience in your app.

On a personal note, that is one of the main the reasons I didn't apply to Cornell. I'm non-trad and going back 5-6 years to find people who may or may not still be employed at the places I worked or who don't really remember me that well just really turned me off.

I think your best bet is to decide which schools you want to apply to and find out what each requires.

This is exactly why I did not apply to Cornell, either (I'm also a non-trad). I didn't even bother looking at their program any further once I saw this. Talk about an insane requirement!

 

[pupsforseeing]

I got one from an SA vet I had worked really closely with me and knew me really well. I considered getting another vet to write me one, but there weren't any who knew me as well as my professors did, so I opted to go with two professors. One was from my organic chemistry prof who I later TA'd for, and the other was from my academic advisor/research advisor/micro prof. I think the important thing is that the people who write you letters are people who know you well, know your capabilities, and your passion.

 

[Ben and Me]

Does it matter if the vet LOR is from a vet in your "declared" field or not? I mean, you obviously want to have experience in that field, but does the specific vet who writes your letter need to be in that field too?

 

[lailanni]

I could have all my LORS from vets, but decided to spread it out.

One was from a vet I worked closely with.

The second one was from a head tech, I probably worked with her more than the vet. She really knows her stuff and had written letters for successful applicants before.

My third was from an employer I've been with for 7 years and they wrote me a great letter.

 

[wi girl]

3 letters:
(1) Professor who I'm writing my thesis with, joined the lab as an animal technician, so got work experience and academic/research in there
(2) vet who I worked with for a summer, essentially my mentor
(3) My major advisor, who likes to write great "personality" letters and grilled me on a history of science final paper that I wrote, and contributed a great deal to the letter. I also TA'd for her. She knows me really well.

I wouldn't concern yourself with getting letters specifically from grads for particular schools. That would be REALLY difficult to arrange in VMCAS, and I'm not sure how many schools let you send in extra letters above VMCAS. I'd ask.

 

[MickeyBlueEyes]

Does it matter if the vet LOR is from a vet in your "declared" field or not? I mean, you obviously want to have experience in that field, but does the specific vet who writes your letter need to be in that field too?

No, this is not important. I my career objective is small animal, but one of my recs was from a wildlife vet. Truly the most important thing is that the person writing knows you and your character and is willing to put in the time and effort to give **detailed examples** in their letter. That said, I was required to have 2 vet recs and my other was from a small animal vet.