LOR Questions

[PremedExplorer]

Hello, just some questions about LORs. Thanks in advance!

Background: My school offers a cover letter and creates a letter packet with letters we submit. They order the letters 1 through 6, and based on that order, letters are submitted to schools. So if I submit 6 letters to my school numbered 1-6, and school A only accepts 4 letters, letters 5 and 6 aren't submitted. For me, this means less flexibility in choosing whether I want to send a PI letter or a volunteering letter to certain schools based on their mission.

My questions -

1. Can I just submit 3 letters (my prof ones) to my school and then submit the other extra letters myself to schools? So my school will submit the first 3 as a packet and I send whichever extra ones I want - going back to the example above, I could submit a fourth letter of my pick rather than whichever letter is ordered as number 4 being auto-submitted?

2. How does the LOR confirmation process work? If it's through a letter packet, does my school just send the letter packet to AMCAS and then I get verified like that?

3. My school asks for my entire AMCAS application, including all the personal details. Does anyone else's school do that? Just wanted to see if other schools require that or if I should be worried about privacy.

Thanks.

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[TCurlz]

My school wrote committee letters (similar to a letter packet for you) they accepted 5 letters and wrote a cover letter. I had to turn in my completed AMCAS app before they wrote the cover letter and that was submitted to schools. From my understanding the entire committee letter was sent to schools even if they accepted less than 5 letters but I could be wrong.

But to answer #3 no it isn't weird it is just to get a more well rounded view of your app so they can do a better summary

 

[PremedExplorer]

My school wrote committee letters (similar to a letter packet for you) they accepted 5 letters and wrote a cover letter. I had to turn in my completed AMCAS app before they wrote the cover letter and that was submitted to schools. From my understanding the entire committee letter was sent to schools even if they accepted less than 5 letters but I could be wrong.

But to answer #3 no it isn't weird it is just to get a more well rounded view of your app so they can do a better summary

What's the purpose of them asking to submit application before they can write/give a letter packet? My school does that too.

My school just puts a generic 1 page cover letter about our school's grading system, its not personalized. So that's mainly why I was wondering

 

[TCurlz]

My school it was so that they knew you submitted it and would write them in the order of submitted primaries. That could still be for you as I bet it takes some time to collect all the letters, formats them etc. So it is prob just to put it in a fair order of who submitted it first, and to not hold up applicants who turned their primary in in May/June

 

[Mr.Smile12]

1) AMCAS letters service can let you do this i think. You need to be on the ball. Often you could even beat your committee submission so your app screening could move along. This is what scares most applicants who have to wait for the committee letter. So I would give the committee what they want (if they just want professor letters or whatever) but plan your independent letters if you think you need to.

2) ask your committee. Read the AMCAS applicant guide.

3) yes, and we ask for you to consent to having us know about your application progress and success.

 

[PremedExplorer]

1) AMCAS letters service can let you do this i think. You need to be on the ball. Often you could even beat your committee submission so your app screening could move along. This is what scares most applicants who have to wait for the committee letter. So I would give the committee what they want (if they just want professor letters or whatever) but plan your independent letters if you think you need to.

2) ask your committee. Read the AMCAS applicant guide.

3) yes, and we ask for you to consent to having us know about your application progress and success.

I know for committee letters, it's preferred by md adcoms that we go through that. For instance, Emory has a secondary that needs to be filled out if you didn't get a committee letter offered by your undergraduate. I need to draw a distinct difference between a COMMITTEE LETTER and a LETTER PACKET with a cover letter. My question is whether you guys think it is still worth it to go with a letter packet vs. individual letters using Interfolio if my school does not offer a committee letter.

The second question regarding Harvard's website. It mentions that a letter packet counts as one letter only. An applicant can still add 4 more for a max. of 5. Just need confirmation of you guys to read it the way I did.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Most undergraduate programs are migrating away from a bona fide committee/institutional evaluation of the candidate and going more towards letter packets without an independent assessment. I have generally been biased towards such assessments to know that the applicants are well-prepared for the process, but not all offices do this. You should check with others to see how reliable the office sends packets before September/Labor Day since that is what worries most applicants (about being "on time"). If your program does not offer an institutional letter/packet, many people don't have a problem with Interfolio in sending letters.

Most schools do consider a committee letter as "one" regardless of the number of attachments included in it. How committees treat the additional letters depends on their internal policies. We don't want an application with more pages dedicated to references than the actual application (tbh, the bandwidth most committees will handle is 5 references maximum, more commonly 3).