LORs from a home program director?

[-Goose-]

Is it a bad idea to get a LOR from your home program director?

I was told once that unless he/she says "we are trying to keep this kid" it will be looked upon as a bad letter.

I have 4 letter writers to choose from so far and I'm thinking I will use only the ones where the attending offered to write me a letter rather than me asking for one. Does this make sense?

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[mcl]

Is it a bad idea to get a LOR from your home program director?

I was told once that unless he/she says "we are trying to keep this kid" it will be looked upon as a bad letter.

I have 4 letter writers to choose from so far and I'm thinking I will use only the ones where the attending offered to write me a letter rather than me asking for one. Does this make sense?

I've never considered it a negative to get an LoR from the home program's PD. While it's true that programs look for key phrases like "we will strongly recruit this applicant for our own program," that isn't the only perspective that PDs are able to provide in their letters, and they know the descriptive wording to use that will appeal to other PDs.

 

[-Goose-]

Thanks so much for helping to calm our collective neuroses.

My LORs scare me because it is the one variable in this whole equation that is somewhat out of my hands... Makes me nervous.

 

[Seville]

I was told we pretty much had to get a letter from our home program or else other programs would wonder why we purposely left it out. Might just be EM specific though?

 

[gutonc]

I was told we pretty much had to get a letter from our home program or else other programs would wonder why we purposely left it out. Might just be EM specific though?

A letter from your home program? Definitely.

From the PD at your home program? Not necessary.

 

[Seville]

A letter from your home program? Definitely.

From the PD at your home program? Not necessary.

ahhh It's all coming clear now.

 

[marcus8]

My PD offered to write one for me. I want to stay here, so I accepted. I wasn't going to tell her no!