Post Interview Letters of Intent

[SpaceJam430]

I had a few questions about sending a letter of intent to the top choice I interviewed at.

1. When is the ideal "time" to send one? Is it possible to send one too late or too soon?
2. For new activities/updates in old activities, should we include hours and contact info?
3. What should be in there? I looked at different websites and they say to express your interests in the school, but should we mention specific programs/parts of their curriculum?
4. How much weight do these letters hold? Do they actually make a difference?
5. Should we submit it as an application update on the portal or email it to admissions if it doesn't say specifically which to do?

Thanks in advance to everyone's advice!

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[Mr.Smile12]

Did you read "While You Are Waiting "? See my signature line for the link to the SDN article.

 

[Goro]

How would you interpret a nonbinding promise from a desperate applicant?

Here’s one Adcom member’s thoughts on the matter:

“We only invite amazing students to interview. It is quite unlikely that further good deeds or achievements will have an effect since only the students who have already wowed us are interviewed.”

“One serious thought for a moment. You want to become a physician, a profession that highly values ethical behavior. Yet even before you start training for this profession, you want take the unethical act of making promises to two different schools that you will attend over any other school?” -gonnif

From the wise Med Ed: [What med schools…] accept and desire are two different things. My institution, for instance, will accept practically anything a given applicant wants to forward along, but only rarely do we consider it a worthwhile addition to the package.

And yes, some of us have gotten a little jaded about LOI's. I could fill a barrel with all the post-interview correspondence I have received that has not translated into a single matriculant. This has all gotten mighty complicated and burdensome for what is essentially a zero sum game.

It's generally not burdensome for an applicant to upload something to the portal, and once in a great while it does tip us off with some useful info. I can think of one individual who had a stellar application, like Harvard/Yale/Stanford-worthy, and a superb interview, who sent us several updates and a LOI. We were somewhat perplexed by this person's tenacious interest in our program. Turns out there were family/geographical reasons behind the whole thing, the applicant just never felt comfortable directly playing that card.

When it comes down to waitlist time I will scan through what folks have uploaded post-interview. The vast majority of times it has no impact. Occasionally I have seen it hurt people's chances. Come to think of it, in my experience this is probably more likely, than such correspondence having a positive impact.

See the following for classic examples of why most Admissions deans treat these as lies.

https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/loi-and-interviews.1252832/#post-18849958

I told a school I'd go if accepted, now not so sure

Hi All, So earlier this year I was waitlisted at a school that was my undoubted first choice. My boyfriend (we are applying together) was accepted there a month or so ago, and so we decided that we'd send the admissions staff a letter, basically saying "If you accept Not A Troll, we will both...

forums.studentdoctor.net

And if you still don’t believe me, read these:

HomeSkool's Guide to Letters of Intent

Second letter of intent? Help!

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

They don’t help. Just to give you peace of mind that you did everything possible

 

[KatsuCurry]

I'm going to go against the grain here. I will concede that my evidence is mostly anecdotal, and Goro's opinion is certainly shared by some adcoms.

However, I think that a lot of schools do care about your interest in their school. Let's take Mayo Clinic Alix SOM: their Dean implies on interview day that you need to send a letter of intent (or at least strong interest) to be accepted. At Boston University SOM, they asked all applicants who interviewed early to send an update letter and to share their level of continued interest before sending out decisions. These are just two examples from my interview trail two cycles ago, but I am sure many schools that I didn't interview at have a similar practice. From my perspective, this is pretty solid evidence that some schools do value LOIs. After all, just like applicants are playing a game, schools also are playing the game of keeping their yield high. I reason that this is especially true at top 40 schools that are competing for top applicants.

That all being said, before sending out a letter of INTENT, the moral thing to do is to really reflect on if you will 100% go to the school that interviewed you if accepted. Would you go if the highest-ranked school that you applied to suddenly offered you an interview? Do you have sincere reasons for wanting to go to that school over any other school in the country? Perhaps I am naïve, but I do not see how an honest letter letting the school know your level of interest can hurt you.

 

[gyngyn]

Sending a letter of "intent" this early in the cycle gives the impression that you make decisions before all relevant facts have been revealed and evaluated.

The time for an LOI (if the school wants one), is at the end of the cycle, not now.
There is nothing wrong with dropping a school when a preferred acceptance arrives, but the memory of broken "promises" makes these early LoI's ring especially hollow.

 

[Goro]

I'm going to go against the grain here. I will concede that my evidence is mostly anecdotal, and Goro's opinion is certainly shared by some adcoms.

However, I think that a lot of schools do care about your interest in their school. Let's take Mayo Clinic Alix SOM: their Dean implies on interview day that you need to send a letter of intent (or at least strong interest) to be accepted. At Boston University SOM, they asked all applicants who interviewed early to send an update letter and to share their level of continued interest before sending out decisions. These are just two examples from my interview trail two cycles ago, but I am sure many schools that I didn't interview at have a similar practice. From my perspective, this is pretty solid evidence that some schools do value LOIs. After all, just like applicants are playing a game, schools also are playing the game of keeping their yield high. I reason that this is especially true at top 40 schools that are competing for top applicants.

That all being said, before sending out a letter of INTENT, the moral thing to do is to really reflect on if you will 100% go to the school that interviewed you if accepted. Would you go if the highest-ranked school that you applied to suddenly offered you an interview? Do you have sincere reasons for wanting to go to that school over any other school in the country? Perhaps I am naïve, but I do not see how an honest letter letting the school know your level of interest can hurt you.

That said, there ARE some needy schools out there (or those that like seeing applicants grovel). They include: Gtown, Jefferson, Mayo, and U Penn. I'll add BU to the list now.

But not all applicants are U Penn or Mayo caliber, are they?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Some programs want the attention and enjoy acting more high maintenance. That is true of a lot of graduate programs. As long as you know ahead of time.

 

[Med Ed]

From my perspective, this is pretty solid evidence that some schools do value LOIs. After all, just like applicants are playing a game, schools also are playing the game of keeping their yield high.

Indeed, and this phenomenon has become more pervasive since the demise of the acceptance reports we used to get each spring.

Still, the signal-to-noise ratio of LOI's remains quite low.

 

[LindaAccepted]

I had a few questions about sending a letter of intent to the top choice I interviewed at.

1. When is the ideal "time" to send one? Is it possible to send one too late or too soon?
2. For new activities/updates in old activities, should we include hours and contact info?
3. What should be in there? I looked at different websites and they say to express your interests in the school, but should we mention specific programs/parts of their curriculum?
4. How much weight do these letters hold? Do they actually make a difference?
5. Should we submit it as an application update on the portal or email it to admissions if it doesn't say specifically which to do?

Thanks in advance to everyone's advice!

I've interviewed many adcom for our podcast. Some throw LOIs/updates into the digital trash can without reading them (John Hopkins). Some consider them after interviews or from waitlisted applicants. (Hofstra for example). Some say bring it on! (Loyola Stritch).

None of them want empty junk or verbiage telling them what they can already see in your application. So the ideal time to send an update is when you have something new and noteworthy to convey and at a time that the school wants to received an update. In terms of LOIs and expressed intent. Just saying "You're my first choice." won't make much of a difference because they've heard that too many times from people who didn't matriculate. Your reasons for being particularly interested in a specific medical school are far more important than a declaration. of intent, which they are highly suspicious of.

 

[Adrenaline Junky]

That said, there ARE some needy schools out there (or those that like seeing applicants grovel). They include: Gtown, Jefferson, Mayo, and U Penn. I'll add BU to the list now.

But not all applicants are U Penn or Mayo caliber, are they?

If you have interviewed at both Penn and Mayo… do you just send a letter of interest to each? Hard to send a letter of intent without going for an in person visit

 

[Goro]

If you have interviewed at both Penn and Mayo… do you just send a letter of interest to each? Hard to send a letter of intent without going for an in person visit

Honest people would send only one LOI

 

[Adrenaline Junky]

Honest people would send only one LOI

I completely agree, just one letter of intent . Is it okay to send a letter of interest to a different school?

 

[Goro]

I completely agree, just one letter of intent . Is it okay to send a letter of interest to a different school?

It's OK if the school accepts them,

 

[SpaceJam430]

I've interviewed many adcom for our podcast. Some throw LOIs/updates into the digital trash can without reading them (John Hopkins). Some consider them after interviews or from waitlisted applicants. (Hofstra for example). Some say bring it on! (Loyola Stritch).

None of them want empty junk or verbiage telling them what they can already see in your application. So the ideal time to send an update is when you have something new and noteworthy to convey and at a time that the school wants to received an update. In terms of LOIs and expressed intent. Just saying "You're my first choice." won't make much of a difference because they've heard that too many times from people who didn't matriculate. Your reasons for being particularly interested in a specific medical school are far more important than a declaration. of intent, which they are highly suspicious of.

For updates, I have a new volunteer experience I started (right now I'm at 200 hours, started in June and do it four times a week) and i also started a new volunteer CNA/shadowing position at a physician's office. Would this be update worthy?

 

[LindaAccepted]

For updates, I have a new volunteer experience I started (right now I'm at 200 hours, started in June and do it four times a week) and i also started a new volunteer CNA/shadowing position at a physician's office. Would this be update worthy?

For schools that welcome updates and assuming you have something to say about these experiences that wasn't included in your primary or secondary (especially the one you started in June), yes. However, I have 2 caveats and they're related to what I just wrote:

1. Make sure you're reflecting on the experience. What have you learned from it? And if it confirmed your interest in medicine, dig deeper. Why? What aspect of the experience was influential? Have you made a difference to the practice or to individual patients? How? Why do you think it's important for the admissions committee to read this update? Dr. Leila Amiri, Associate Dean for Admissions at UVM Larner, was particularly clear on this point in last week's podcast, and here's an excerpt from her comments, "Reflection is most important to us. The experience itself isn’t that important, it’s what the individual has taken away from it. We want to know about challenges that an individual may have faced during their life and for them to share a little bit about that with us as well. What we’re hoping to see is really reflection, resiliency, and how individuals learn and recover from obstacles that they may have dealt with."

2. Make it worth the reader's time, which is closely related to #1. If for the volunteer position that you started in June, you don't really have new insights or new responsibilities don't update them just to say you're still doing it. That's not worth an update. And for the second one, which is new, make sure you have enough experience in this new role to have reflected on it and its significance to you.