LOR Committee Letter Late

[spidey_ye]

Hi everyone!

I am currently very very confused and stressed about whether I made a mistake. For some reason, my committee did not send in my letter at the same time as the rest of my peers (early July), and now the advisor is on vacation. She is supposed to come in this week but I am now confused because my application is being marked complete even without my letter submitted. I have 4 individual letters (because I needed those for my committee letter), and my advisor uploaded those as individual letters, so I assigned those to my schools. I called one of the schools, and they said the reason why my application was put off hold after submitting my secondaries was because the individual letters fit the requirement. But now I am confused if that means they will not see my committee letter and will be confused as to why I don't have it - which I know is seen as a red flag to a lot of schools. I really don't know what to do and if I should wait off to submit until that is in?? I don't know if I made a mistake, and if so, how would I even go about fixing it?

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[wysdoc]

Hi everyone!

I am currently very very confused and stressed about whether I made a mistake. For some reason, my committee did not send in my letter at the same time as the rest of my peers (early July), and now the advisor is on vacation. She is supposed to come in this week but I am now confused because my application is being marked complete even without my letter submitted. I have 4 individual letters (because I needed those for my committee letter), and my advisor uploaded those as individual letters, so I assigned those to my schools. I called one of the schools, and they said the reason why my application was put off hold after submitting my secondaries was because the individual letters fit the requirement. But now I am confused if that means they will not see my committee letter and will be confused as to why I don't have it - which I know is seen as a red flag to a lot of schools. I really don't know what to do and if I should wait off to submit until that is in?? I don't know if I made a mistake, and if so, how would I even go about fixing it?

I don't know why the advisor uploaded the individual letters instead of sending them along with the advisor/committee letter.
In any case, this was not your error.
The good thing is you have 4 letters in, which the schools can see.

When she returns from vacation, ask her calmly if the committee letter was included with the 4 letters sent to schools. She may be able to add it now, if not.

 

[eigen]

Your advisor screwed up, sorry to say.

That said, you're not so late that the committee letter can't be added, and if you have any schools that question "why no committee letter", you have a solid answer: the person who was supposed to upload it didn't.

Hopefully the committee letter is written and just wasn't uploaded and can be quickly uploaded when they're back this week.

 

[spidey_ye]

Your advisor screwed up, sorry to say.

That said, you're not so late that the committee letter can't be added, and if you have any schools that question "why no committee letter", you have a solid answer: the person who was supposed to upload it didn't.

Hopefully the committee letter is written and just wasn't uploaded and can be quickly uploaded when they're back this week.

Yeah, I already submitted some applications and am sending emails to medical schools explaining this because I don't even know if what I did was right or not. I just don't want this to be seen as a red flag since my school offers them, and if they review my app and they don't see it uploaded think something is up :/ I hope this doesn't become a huge issue idek

The letter is written apparently (it has been since the end of June), but only she has the ability to upload it, so I'm just waiting for the day she returns.

 

[spidey_ye]

I don't know why the advisor uploaded the individual letters instead of sending them along with the advisor/committee letter.
In any case, this was not your error.
The good thing is you have 4 letters in, which the schools can see.

When she returns from vacation, ask her calmly if the committee letter was included with the 4 letters sent to schools. She may be able to add it now, if not.

I didn't know either, so I thought I had to assign them all, which I clearly was not supposed to. Not sure what to do since some schools say they'll only look at the first 4 individual letters and will see later if they wanna see additional ones. Dk if I already messed up my app

 

[eigen]

Oooh, yeah, if you assigned them as individual letters, I can see why your advisor thought you wanted them uploaded as individual letters as well as in a letter packet / committee letter.

Schools will see that you have something tagged as a committee letter if you added that as a "committee" rather than "individual" letter, when it comes in.

There is always the challenge with a mix of individual and committee letters that a school might choose to view some rather than all of your letters: sometimes that's the committee letter and not the individual letters, sometimes that's the individual letters and not the committee.

 

[spidey_ye]

Oooh, yeah, if you assigned them as individual letters, I can see why your advisor thought you wanted them uploaded as individual letters as well as in a letter packet / committee letter.

Schools will see that you have something tagged as a committee letter if you added that as a "committee" rather than "individual" letter, when it comes in.

There is always the challenge with a mix of individual and committee letters that a school might choose to view some rather than all of your letters: sometimes that's the committee letter and not the individual letters, sometimes that's the individual letters and not the committee.

omg okay, I hope that doesn't hurt me too much then. I'm confused bc she told me to upload them as individual letters but I guess I was only supposed to assign some of them?? sorry I think I'm confusing this too much lol

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Before you began the process, did you ask...

Eight Questions About the Pre-Health “Committee Letter” - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

I don't know why your letter is sent a little later than your school peers, but it is usually NOT the advisor's fault.

Before you began the process, you should be informed to what the committee letter contains, including whether it quotes from or it fully includes solicited letters.

The advisor should give you explicit instructions if you are to upload individual letters from your references before you begin the committee letter process.

 

[spidey_ye]

Before you began the process, did you ask...

Eight Questions About the Pre-Health “Committee Letter” - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

I don't know why your letter is sent a little later than your school peers, but it is usually NOT the advisor's fault.

Before you began the process, you should be informed to what the committee letter contains, including whether it quotes from or it fully includes solicited letters.

The advisor should give you explicit instructions if you are to upload individual letters from your references before you begin the committee letter process.

I already did the process, and I probably should have asked these questions prior, but all I got was an email about LORs and how we should send her both a committee letter and individual letter requests for our LORs, so she uploaded only my individual in early June, and then I did my interview mid-June. I really did not think bf assigning all my letters to my schools and totally did not know that the committee letter could include my references, too - I probably should have done more research on this and asked. I called and all they did was apologize for the wait but that they can't do anything until she's back from vacation next week. I wish I could unassign my LORS, but my primary is very verified and got secondaries already. I emailed some of my medical schools and some replied saying they would look at the committee letter uploaded later. I guess the only answer I can get is from her when she gets back - but they told me the letter is in her inbox so idk what really happened with me.