LORs for residency application

[DrDrToBe]

I am hoping to match into plastics this year and was just talking with my advisor about who to ask for rec letters. My school has a great program, so I was thinking I'd get a couple letters from people here, and 2 more from my away rotations. I was surprised when my advisor told me that I should only get rec letters from people at my school for my application, and only use the away letter for the school that gives it to me. His rationale was that by using away letters, other programs will automatically know I prefer the places I do my aways and will be less likely to rank me highly.
Anyone ever heard of anything like this?

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[DrDrToBe]

Mods, just realized there's an ERAS forum. Can you please post this there? Thanks.

 

[Sheldor]

I've heard the opposite, actually. I was told that if you don't have letters from your aways that will hurt you because people will wonder why you weren't able to do well enough on the rotation to get a letter.

 

[FSU2013]

Seems like a stretch....and something you could easily argue against. Besides, plastics is super small and your transcripts will say that you did an away. If you don't get one from an away, some people might think that's suspicious (catch-22, huh?)

I would use them (as I think most conventional wisdom would agree). Let's say you did an away rotation at school x and you're interviewing at school y - "you know, I liked what school x had to offer, but this unique aspect of your program that you're obviously super proud of is extremely appealing to me. And obviously, I like the location better"

Everyone has those things about their program that they're proud of and almost everyone loves their city. If you tell someone in Boston that you prefer it to NYC, they'll believe you because they do. If you tell someone in LA you prefer it so Miami, they'll go with it. It kinda sucks, but it's part of the game.