LOR Question

[TheBoneDoctah]

If a letter writer uploads a letter of recommendation for me to ERAS, do I have to use that letter when applying for residency?

For example, I am not sure which preceptors I am going to ask to write me letters at the moment. It will depend on the rotation and how I feel I performed, etc. So if I ask my FM doc, and they write me a letter, and then later on I get other letters, do I need to submit that FM letter or can I only send the ones I want?

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[Black Coffee 24/7]

Get letters from all honored rotations. If you're good enough to get honor, you're good enough to get a strong LOR.

 

[ciestar]

Should you ideally be getting letters as an MS3? I have one from my fm rotation (my eval was glowing. I would have honored if it wasnt for the shelf.. so I had to settle for HP)

I just feel like Im behind on doing this. My ms4 starts in may at my school.. so i should have time?

 

[Black Coffee 24/7]

Should you ideally be getting letters as an MS3? I have one from my fm rotation (my eval was glowing. I would have honored if it wasnt for the shelf.. so I had to settle for HP)

I just feel like Im behind on doing this. My ms4 starts in may at my school.. so i should have time?

Yes, you should absolutely should. There are a few things that will screw you over during residency applications:

1) Failed Step 1 / Step 2/ PE
2) Failed clinical rotation
3) Not getting your required LORs in time

#3 is actually very common. I have already met a few residents / MS4ers who got screwed out of interviews due to not having the required LORs on file in time.

If you're honoring clinical eval from your preceptor, you should be getting a LOR from him or her period.

My game plan for LORs is to have one IM/IM subspecialty LOR, one surgical subspecialty LOR, one LOR from field of interest, and one LOR from PD of my field of interest.

Ideally, they should be all honored rotations, with HP as a minimum.

 

[sunshinefl]

M2 here. Obviously doesn’t apply to me yet but trying to understand the process. Where would you have early LOR submitted to? Interfolio again like for Medical school applications or what?

 

[sunshinefl]

So the ERAS application has its own Letter of Rec portal (LoRP). The LoRP opens up well before the rest of the application does - I don't remember exactly when. But you can have your writers upload it to ERAS directly well before the application cycle actually starts. If it's not open yet you can just have them hang onto it til it's time.

ETA: just another useful tidbit, it varies slightly based on specialty but you should probably shoot for 3-4 LORs. I think you can assign a max of 4 to each program so unless you're like applying to multiple specialties having more than that will be useless. And some specialties require/expect a department chair letter, a letter from your home program, etc., and for EM you need something called a SLOE. So if you know what you might be interested in, I would seek some advising about letters for that specialty to find out what you're looking for as you go through third year.

Thank you!

 

[ciestar]

So the ERAS application has its own Letter of Rec portal (LoRP). The LoRP opens up well before the rest of the application does - I don't remember exactly when. But you can have your writers upload it to ERAS directly well before the application cycle actually starts. If it's not open yet you can just have them hang onto it til it's time.

ETA: just another useful tidbit, it varies slightly based on specialty but you should probably shoot for 3-4 LORs. I think you can assign a max of 4 to each program so unless you're like applying to multiple specialties having more than that will be useless. And some specialties require/expect a department chair letter, a letter from your home program, etc., and for EM you need something called a SLOE. So if you know what you might be interested in, I would seek some advising about letters for that specialty to find out what you're looking for as you go through third year.

I legit got access to ERAS yesterday