No Committee Letter TMDSAS/AMCAS

[velvetcoffee]

Hello!

My school does a lot of committee letters, but I opted not to get one for quite a few reasons. 1) they don’t allow outside opinions and I had a 1 year clinical research position I loved along with 3 other research experiences outside of the school. 2) For every applicant they write concerns (which I don’t like). 3) they are rather generic mentioning things like GPA.

I opted to get one from my pre-health advisor instead which was personal, 2 science professors (for schools that want 2), and the 1-year research PI.

Does this look bad? I didn’t realize it was such a problem but reading past threads is scaring me. I thought it would be nice to have personal letters of support. Does Texas not like this?

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[wysdoc]

Hello!

My school does a lot of committee letters, but I opted not to get one for quite a few reasons. 1) they don’t allow outside opinions and I had a 1 year clinical research position I loved along with 3 other research experiences outside of the school. 2) For every applicant they write concerns (which I don’t like). 3) they are rather generic mentioning things like GPA.

I opted to get one from my pre-health advisor instead which was personal, 2 science professors (for schools that want 2), and the 1-year research PI.

Does this look bad? I didn’t realize it was such a problem but reading past threads is scaring me. I thought it would be nice to have personal letters of support. Does Texas not like this?

Very few Texas colleges do committee letters so don’t worry and don’t over explain if asked about it.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I concur, and I would not be concerned about this.

 

[wysdoc]

Lots of past threads on this, search "no committee letter"
No committee letter a red flag?

Question on why no committee letter?

Non Trad, no committee letter?

No Committee Letter Explanation on secondary?

 

[Goro]

At my school, we don't care

 

[chilly_md]

And more importantly, for the essays that ask us to explain why we don't have one, would the crux of what I just said in a much more well written, politically correct way raise eyebrows?/how should I best explain this?

Your reason can’t really be massaged into sounding better. Maybe if the committee had an explicit research requirement and you share that you were unable to get that till after the deadline for them to begin writing a letter.

As mentioned in one of the existing threads that wysdoc linked, you may run into trouble at schools that explicitly ask why you didn’t use one on their secondary or schools that have come to expect a committee letter from applicants at your undergrad.

 

[eigen]

Additionally, there is a chance that a med school will only have 1 applicant from a particular undergrad, so why would it matter in that case how I "ranked" subjectively compared to others at my school? Again, another instance where it can only hurt.

Does your school explicitly rank applicants from the school against each other? I've been involved in the process at two different schools from the writing side, and while we do look at our whole slate of applicants in a year to see who stands out, our recommendations aren't "ranked" against each other.

They're ranked based on how strong the applicant is, given the institutional context.

One reason a committee letter can be helpful often include the institutional context. If we know our school is working to "deflate" grades, then speaking about the success and relative GPA in the context of students who've been successful in medical school helps contextualize performance. Adcoms have no way of knowing, outside of major feeder schools, any of that. But the committee does.

It can also be particularly helpful for students who would benefit from a holistic or contextualized view of their performance: for instance, maybe they had to work, and as such couldn't participate in research, or participated minimally.

The other time I find it helpful is for students who didn't have a lot of multi-faceted interactions with instructors, but had good experiences with many of them. Those instructors often can't write very detailed letters, but a number of them with a committee letter tying together themes (a composite letter) can really help some students shine.

And finally, a lot of faculty are just bad letter writers. They include a lot of useless detail (about their lab, their career, their course design) and often forget to tie their observations specifically into core competencies that are important. A good committee letter can highlight the applicants core competencies and cut through a lot of the extraneous detail. In my conversations, that's one reason AdComs like them, and it can similarly benefit students to have someone putting together the letter that knows what their strengths are relative to the schools they're applying to.

I'll also mention that most of the time you don't have to choose between a committee letter and individual letters. For instance, many of my current students might have a letter from a clinician or research mentor submitted alongside the committee letter. How this plays out depends some on specific school guidelines, and some on different application systems (MD / TX / DO, etc.)

Just some thoughts to maybe shine some light on the process from the side of the committee.

 

[velvetcoffee]

Does your school explicitly rank applicants from the school against each other? I've been involved in the process at two different schools from the writing side, and while we do look at our whole slate of applicants in a year to see who stands out, our recommendations aren't "ranked" against each other.

They're ranked based on how strong the applicant is, given the institutional context.

One reason a committee letter can be helpful often include the institutional context. If we know our school is working to "deflate" grades, then speaking about the success and relative GPA in the context of students who've been successful in medical school helps contextualize performance. Adcoms have no way of knowing, outside of major feeder schools, any of that. But the committee does.

It can also be particularly helpful for students who would benefit from a holistic or contextualized view of their performance: for instance, maybe they had to work, and as such couldn't participate in research, or participated minimally.

The other time I find it helpful is for students who didn't have a lot of multi-faceted interactions with instructors, but had good experiences with many of them. Those instructors often can't write very detailed letters, but a number of them with a committee letter tying together themes (a composite letter) can really help some students shine.

And finally, a lot of faculty are just bad letter writers. They include a lot of useless detail (about their lab, their career, their course design) and often forget to tie their observations specifically into core competencies that are important. A good committee letter can highlight the applicants core competencies and cut through a lot of the extraneous detail. In my conversations, that's one reason AdComs like them, and it can similarly benefit students to have someone putting together the letter that knows what their strengths are relative to the schools they're applying to.

I'll also mention that most of the time you don't have to choose between a committee letter and individual letters. For instance, many of my current students might have a letter from a clinician or research mentor submitted alongside the committee letter. How this plays out depends some on specific school guidelines, and some on different application systems (MD / TX / DO, etc.)

Just some thoughts to maybe shine some light on the process from the side of the committee.

I wish mine did this! My school uses a template and does not include outside input, which is sad, but they have a lot of students. I wasn't able to go back to do the interview because I started work right after graduation (when they do them for gap-year people), but I don't think I would have chosen one anyways because I really wanted to showcase my research work, which was outside of the school. Hopefully, it's fine.

 

[eigen]

I wish mine did this! My school uses a template and does not include outside input, which is sad, but they have a lot of students. I wasn't able to go back to do the interview because I started work right after graduation (when they do them for gap-year people), but I don't think I would have chosen one anyways because I really wanted to showcase my research work, which was outside of the school. Hopefully, it's fine.

I think this is typical at schools with high volumes of students: it's effectively a cover letter that goes along with the full letters you submitted.

I'm happy we're able to do a more customized process but I very much realize not all schools are able to.