My school's pre-med committee wouldn't let me pick out letters

[LightShallBringVictory]

Hello everyone,

I have a question regarding what to do about my LORs. My school has a pre-med committee that writes a committee letter in addition to the individual letters and sends them to medical schools.

Before really starting to read posts here on SDN about LORs, I did not know that I could and should ask the letter writers if they would be willing to write me strong, positive letters prior to a letter request. As a result, I asked a number of people that I would not have asked... and they already submitted their letters to the committee.

In the hope of being able to exclude the particular letters, I asked my advisor if I could pick out which letters to be included. He said no, stating that the committee includes all letters.

Of course I was frustrated, because I was pretty sure that those letters were not as strong/positive as I wanted them to be. I currently have 7 letters, and I am trying to exclude three of them. After the exclusion, I would have 2 science faculty letters, 1 MD letter, and 1 non-science faculty letter. All these are positive and strong.

The ones I am trying to omit are either written by someone who don't know me well (internship PI, science faculty), or did not view my contribution/work very positively (Research PI). My research PI, though, when I asked him if his letter would be negative, said that his letter would be "fine" and he viewed my work "positively". I am just worried, because the transition was not as smooth as I hoped when I left his lab, as I had to leave abruptly due to a family issue, but without talking with him in face...

My question is: if my pre-med committee ultimately denies my request for excluding certain letters, what should I do? Should I just submit letters individually? I heard that not using the committee letter option is viewed negatively...

Thank you very much for your time to read my post!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[LightShallBringVictory]

A lesson to all the rest to understand this process before you blindly go into it



So which of these two equally bad choices do you take:
The vast majority of medical schools require, recommend, or prefer committee letters. But your committee letter very well may be less than wholly enthusiastic
On the other hand, you can get and submit strong individual LORs.

Bad letters from a committee are very bad indeed for an applicant. Go with individual LORs is my advice

Hello, thank you for your advice. I do think that I should go with my LORs individually too. I was wondering if "my committee was not very supportive/attentive to its students" would be a good reasoning when medical schools ask me why I did not use the committee letter? Thanks in advance.

 

[LizzyM]

I wonder if it might be reasonable to say, "I was confused about the process of getting a committee letter and so I chose to go with individual letter."

 

[LightShallBringVictory]

Worst possible answer. "They werent supportive" reads to an adcom "they were going to give me a bad letter"

I think "attentive" would more appropriate to use, because the 3~4 advisors have been taking care of ~80-100 pre-meds at my department.

I wonder if it might be reasonable to say, "I was confused about the process of getting a committee letter and so I chose to go with individual letter."

I did get confused; I just looked up my school's pre-med committee page and nowhere it says applicants are not authorized to pick out their letters...

 

[LizzyM]

@LightShallBringVictory What your school does comes as no surprise to me. Some schools state with pride that they attach all the letters in total while quoting from some of them. Other schools quote some of the letters but don't provide the supporting letters in total which always seems rather shady-- like they are helping students hide the less than stellar letters.

 

[begoood95]

@LizzyM Similarly, I am not obtaining a committee letter (and it's available at my school). Instead I have four individual, strong letters.

Our one pre-med advisor (at a state school with hundreds of pre-meds), in fact, directly advised against undergoing our committee letter process after I informed her of the individual letters I had; our committee letter does not include other letters and is based on an interview with three (essentially random) professors within our A&S department, of which write the letter.

If I say something along these lines -- pre-med advisor actually directly advised against getting one -- do you think that would be seen as reasonable?

 

[LightShallBringVictory]

@LightShallBringVictory What your school does comes as no surprise to me. Some schools state with pride that they attach all the letters in total while quoting from some of them. Other schools quote some of the letters but don't provide the supporting letters in total which always seems rather shady-- like they are helping students hide the less than stellar letters.

Thank you for your response. I have set up an appointment with my advisor this week to further discuss my letters. I honestly do not know if the letters I am trying to omit are that "bad". Two from my internship PI and a science faculty are likely just mediocre, as they did not have enough time to get to know me. The one from my research PI is the problem -- I have no clue. My research PI said his letter would be "fine" and all that, but my neurotic pre-med mind says I should probably try to omit his letter. If not obtaining committee letter is frowned upon that much, I think I will make up my mind after talking with my advisor this week...

 

[Lawpy]

i wish there is a nationwide, standardized committee letter process. it seems some committees are awesome and others are horrible.

 

[begoood95]

i wish there is a nationwide, standardized committee letter process. it seems some committees are awesome and others are horrible.

Tell me about it. And unfortunately, I'd wager that a sizable percentage of committees tend to fall in the latter category.

 

[gyngyn]

I've found committee letters to be far superior to individual LOE's.
The only negative I can come up with is how late some of them are released.

 

[begoood95]

I've found committee letters to be far superior to individual LOE's.
The only negative I can come up with is how late some of them are released.

In what way, besides the whole objective evaluation of a candidate? (And if you speak clearly to your letter writer, and provide them with resources --particularly from the AAMC -- I'm sure even this could be achieved.)

To me, it seems that multiple, qualified and experienced individual letter writers could provide a better evaluation of a candidate than a committee. Of course, these professors don't have some college-wide comparative data to include (which I've heard is helpful), but if they've taught for long enough, I'm sure some of their comparisons could be helpful.

I say (potentially) better because, if chosen correctly, one could select a variety of professors with a variety of perspective and evaluations of said candidate.

 

[gyngyn]

In what way, besides the whole objective evaluation of a candidate? (And if you speak clearly to your letter writer, and provide them with resources --particularly from the AAMC -- I'm sure even this could be achieved.)

To me, it seems that multiple, qualified and experienced individual letter writers could provide a better evaluation of a candidate than a committee. Of course, these professors don't have some college-wide comparative data to include (which I've heard is helpful), but if they've taught for long enough, I'm sure some of their comparisons could be helpful.

Committee letters cover areas of actual interest. They identify the applicant's salient personal qualities and provide examples that illustrate them. They go into much greater depth on the applicant's background and motivations. They weave a compelling story that makes us want to interview them.

Even experienced individual letter writers tend to write bland innocuous pap. Maybe it's not their fault, but the large majority of individual letters are useless.

The preference for committee letters isn't an accident.