Playing the game

[Command]

Not sure if this is common knowledge and I'm just ignorant, but I recently met with an admissions counselor for a top 15 school and one of the things that not many applicants do, but can get extra attention to their app is to get a doctor to send the admissions council an email/letter (doesn't have to be a LoR) basically saying "I recommend this student."

But it can't be any doctor, either an alumni with connections or an influential doctor in their field has to send it. So if your family does not have connections, you can do research/internship at an academic or university hospital program and try to network with the doctors at the top.

This also applies in med school when applying for residencies and in residency if applying for fellowships.

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[md-2020]

Not sure if this is common knowledge and I'm just ignorant, but I recently met with an admissions counselor for a top 15 school and one of the things that not many applicants do, but can get extra attention to their app is to get a doctor to send the admissions council an email/letter (doesn't have to be a LoR) basically saying "I recommend this student."

But it can't be any doctor, either an alumni with connections or an influential doctor in their field has to send it. So if your family does not have connections, you can do research/internship at an academic or university hospital program and try to network with the doctors at the top.

This also applies in med school when applying for residencies and in residency if applying for fellowships.

This is common knowledge. Just like college admissions, exceptional character recommendations will put you over the top.

If you could get a detailed/personalized LOR from POTUS you could probably get in anywhere (Assuming passable stats).

 

[KinesiologyNerd]

It's all about who you know, man.

 

[Spector1]

If you have connections, you can get in anywhere. The problem is getting said connections

 

[Spinach Dip]

This applies to life in general, and has since the times of babylon.

Sorry.

 

[efle]

This...seems odd as all the SDN adcoms repeatedly say they disregard any letters from people that did not know you in a useful capacity (that is, as instructors or close workers). If letters of rec from physicians you extensively shadowed are worth nothing, I somehow doubt an email saying "I recommend this person" would suddently help just because the physician went to that school 30 years prior

 

[efle]

That's why OP said,

Right and I'm wondering how influence or alumni status makes it so the physician is now considered to know the person in the correct capacity

 

[LizzyM]

I have interviewed applicants who seemed to have a recommendation that came in by phone, but sometimes a letter in the file, even sometimes an email from "upstairs", requesting that an applicant get "every consideration" because of a VIP connection usually due to being a blood relative (rarely a relative by marriage). Usually that means the applicant is related to a high ranking faculty member or a member of the university leadership (including trustees and major donors). Just being a faculty member or alumnus who recommends an applicant is not enough to garner an interview for that applicant.

The call or the letter gets you in the door. The interview gets you an offer. If the interview is not great, or if your stats are so poor that the interview was extended solely as a courtesy, then you aren't going to get beyond the interview phase.

 

[Axes]

This is always true. One of the things that helped get me into my undergrad was a successful CNN reporter-- and alum of both my high school and the college-- having coffee with an ADCOM member she knew. It won't work if you're not a decent to good (depending on the caliber of your recommender) fit to begin with. Unless we're talking like executive branch of the government level, but I doubt any of us are in that boat (yacht?)

 

[Command]

I assumed OP was talking about specifically making an effort to get to know alumni/influential doctors by working with them. I agree that simply convincing some random alum to recommend you without actually knowing you at all is pointless.

Yeah what I mean by playing the game is doing research/interning at a large academic program and networking with the well-known department Chairs to get a project from them. Then ask them to shoot an email to the admissions council of your top choice or where they have connections. These guys won't do this for everyone, you really gotta impress them.

Does everyone who gets into a top school do this? No. But it would help get that extra attention that @LizzyM was talking about.

 

[LizzyM]

I assumed OP was talking about specifically making an effort to get to know alumni/influential doctors by working with them. I agree that simply convincing some random alum to recommend you without actually knowing you at all is pointless.

One thing that can backfire is working for someone who the adcom members or the dean thinks is a jerk. I can think of one faculty member who seemed slick and dishonest (he was) and another who is just too prissy and lacking in a sense of humor. Birds of a feather and all that, having a recommendation from such a faculty member isn't going to help although I generally try not to hold it against the applicant who worked for such a person.

 

[Goro]

I've seen LORs from Nobel Laureates (and US senators) , but they never, ever help marginal candidates.