LOR dilemma

[stoutt]

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Okay so here's the situation about my letters. As of now I have 3 letters from science profs (2 from my major, 1 from another department), a letter from my research PI and a letter from a doctor I've shadowed. Now I know that some schools require a non-science LOR and some schools don't care (my undergrad sends out a packet, not a committee letter). I would be able to get a non-science letter from but I think that it would not be as strong as my science letters and also worry that since the prof is ESL he may not be the best english writer and isn't very familiar with med school LORs. So what to do?

1. Stick with my 3 science letters (for a total of 5) and forget about schools that require non-science letters.

2. Ask for the non-science letter, included it in the packet and send out a total or 6 letters to all my schools.

3. See if I can send the non-science letter separately to schools that require it but do option 1 for all the other schools. (Also how exactly would I go about doing this?)

TIA!

 

[EBTrailRunner]

Hmm... can't you have your school's career center send out your letters individually? That's what I did. If so, I'd go with option 3.

 

[Isoprop]

Sounds like you are using a school letter writing service. You have to send your letters to AAMC/AMCAS to send out to schools (there are a few schools that don't participate in it IIRC). So you're not going to be sending 6 letters to every school.

Generally, you don't need to worry about non-native English speaking students. They need to write a lot and show effective written communication to obtain an academic appointment. So even if they speak broken English, they probably write very well. This isn't always the case, but it is a general rule of thumb.

Finally, go with whatever letters you feel are the strongest for each school's requirements.

I got by with sending only 2 academic letters and a letter from my volunteer coordinator for a lot of schools.