Please forgive me if this question has been asked before. Please feel free to forward the previous thread to me. I received my letter requesting me to submit LORs on official med school forms from my state school yesterday. I am already going through a rec service from my alma mater that uses a generic form for LORs. The assistant in the rec service called the medical school and asked if they would accept the other LOR form in place of their official form. From what I can tell the forms are very similiar other than some wording but they arrive at the same goal. Their response was that that was fine as long as I got the appropriate LORs submitted. Do you think I will be penalized for sending the nonstandard LOR form to them? Will it appear that I am a non-conformist? Or should I have my recommenders submit another form on the official med school form? Appreciate your help.
I don't think that anyone cares if you use their form or not. Most applicants are not using the forms that schools give. The exception to this is the University of Iowa which requires their forms.
i don't think it matters. i used umich's reference letter center's generic premed form and no schools have seemed to care since. also, the people at that letter center have told me that the schools will accept their form in lieu of the school-specific forms. if you have questions - call up your alma mater's letter center and ask them if they've had any schools deny their forms. it's doubtful - i'm sure you can use them. (prolly w/the one exception that JBJ offered; i haven't heard of any others) just my opinion!
i used my undergrads LOR forms, and haven't had any problem. if it matters, the school will probably say "only use OUR forms".
I called U Pitt today that seems to have their own form. My LOR service also has their own form and I was concerned about hte same issue. They let me know that if it's from an LOR service and you have waived your right to see the letters, it's cool. Also, make sure your LOR writers have made mention that that you took ABC class under than and got XYZ credits with a "blah" GPA. Those 3 are crucial.
