LOR from personal psychologist

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azor ahai

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I have never worked for him. However, he's known me better than anyone else besides my family. I've had a a lot of traumatic events happen to me during college. I feel his letter would grant much better insight into my character than traditional LOR's (though I am obviously sending those as well).

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No. For two reasons
1) You did not work for him
2) You did not volunteer under him

It would be like getting a letter from your parents about you. To top it all off you could potentially be revealing some private weakness that some adcoms may not take well.

Think of it this way, you want to get a letter from someone who feels like a "boss" to you. Does your PI feel like a boss? yes. Does your football coach feel like a boss to you? yes Does getting a letter from your friend feel like a boss to you? no. This is the best way to approach the whole "who to ask" for an LOR question.
 
There is nothing valuable your psychologist could possibly say that would be useful for admissions to make a decision.


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I understand, thanks for the advice.

I thought about writing about these traumatic events in my personal statement because they have made me stronger. Thoughts on personal statement?
 
Being honest, you seem to have an unhealthy fixation over bad past experiences. We all have them, some more than others sure, but ultimately we've all had tough experiences that have either helped us to grow or broke us in ways. Considering that you thought it would be a good idea to expose such personal and unnecessary information to adcoms a la having a psychiatrist articulate your worst experiences and attributes to a group of people you're intending to impress, I'd say it's very likely your personal statement will have an air of dramatization and over-sharing that reflects this attitude.

In other words, you're walking a thin line by cataloging and focusing on bad events in your life. That doesn't mean they're a taboo or shouldn't be acknowledged if significant, but it should be framed in a way that does make it sound like there was a growth because of it, rather than some sort of 'I couldn't do x, y, and z because of my situation' etc. It's a difficult thing to strike a balance with. So be careful, err on the side of caution when you think you might be over-sharing, and have plenty of eyes look at it.
 
No. For two reasons
1) You did not work for him
2) You did not volunteer under him

It would be like getting a letter from your parents about you. To top it all off you could potentially be revealing some private weakness that some adcoms may not take well.

Think of it this way, you want to get a letter from someone who feels like a "boss" to you. Does your PI feel like a boss? yes. Does your football coach feel like a boss to you? yes Does getting a letter from your friend feel like a boss to you? no. This is the best way to approach the whole "who to ask" for an LOR question.
Third reason:

3) do you really want to highlight the fact that you had some psychological issues and leave me to wonder whether or not they will be exacerbated by the stress of medical school?
 
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