Missing LOR on ERAS

[mxxena]

I'm just curious to know what you all think about this. I applied for osteopathic general surgery residency positions through ERAS. I called and emailed my school several times to ensure that they received all 3 of my letters of recomendation. I was then assured that they were received and would be uploaded ASAP by my school. I took their word for it and quite frankly was not really sure how to verify on my end that they were uploaded. I then only received 2 interview invites- St. Michaels Episcopal and Peninsula. I decided not to rank either program and took my chances on the scramble. On scramble day, I requested the school to fax my info to several programs that I spoke with. At that time they told me one of my letters of rec was missing- not in my file and never uploaded!!! When I approached the dean of my school with this info he basically said that he doubted the reason I did not get many interviews was due to the missing LOR. Would programs consider my application with one of my letters missing or did my school completely screw me over???

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[Fin-Nor]

what do you mean you werent sure how to look it up? sounds like you're partly to blame.

its all on ERAS website if you look at the school's your applying to see if the documents were uploaded.

but anyways, programs may not look at your file when incomplete.

 

[prionsRbad]

OP I'm sorry for your troubles. As a pre-med starting school in August all I have to say is I can't believe applying for residency is like applying for med school all over again!! I didn't really know that you need LOR's again for residency.

I hope everything works out for you!

 

[GregsAnatomy]

I feel your pain...my school's student services was also pretty painful to deal with regarding LOR's. You can however see on ERAS if the school has uploaded them to the postbox.

I'm not sure the lack of a letter prevented you from interviews. Most places I received invites from offered me an interview date "pending completion of applicant file" as I was late getting my 3rd LOR in.

Hope things work out for you, good luck.

 

[Drawing Dead]

Sounds like we go to the same school. I didn't go sugery, I went EM, so I don't know if there is any difference in programs. But I did get the bulk of my interviews with just 2 of my LORs. Although, when I did get the 3rd one, I heard back from many more. And at this point it was mostly "no", probably because it was so late, probably because my application was nothing special.

At the very least you can do an internship, and apply next year. General Sx isn't impossible. Besides, I'm sure there will be plenty of attrition leaving open PGY-2 spots open.