Premed Committee recommend with reservations or regular LORs?

[sydney1616]

[post deleted]

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[Pusheen]

Wait, so they still have reservations about a 3.53sgpa?
I don't know that much about this process, but your commitee seems really unhelpful

 

[NickNaylor]

If you're coming from a school of any significant size that pushes out a lot of medical school applicants, the admissions committees will know to expect a letter from you, and not having one will raise eyebrows. It's not necessarily a deal-breaker - particularly as a non-trad - but it's something that you will be expected to explain, and obviously "they wouldn't write me a good letter" is not going to be an adequate explanation.

I'm guessing at this point it's too late to do anything that might change their evaluation, but I find it somewhat hard to believe that they would provide that general evaluation based only on your GPA. Are you sure there's nothing else that was problematic about your collegiate career? A 3.5-3.6 GPA is completely reasonable, so if that really is, in fact, the only reason that the committee would give you that evaluation, they're really doing you a disservice.

No easy option, unfortunately, as there are clear downsides to both choices. Ultimately I think I would skip the committee letter and cross the bridge of trying to explain why you didn't send one when you get there.

 

[SpoiledMilk]

I am amazed your pre-health committee even let you know about their reserved recommendation. I signed a disclaimer waiving all my rights to even know about what my committee wrote about me. I pray that it was good.

That said, take the "gift" that you were given and go with the individual letters and use Interfolio. As @gonnif said with authority, Adcoms will not make it an issue if you don't get a committee letter as a non-traditional applicant.

 

[sydney1616]

A bad committee letter worse than no committee letter especially with good indy LORs. No committee letter for a nontrad is nearly a non issue

I wasn't expecting this and already included the committee letter on my submitted primary which I submitted early. I can't delete this only mark it as not being sent out so I guess I'm totally screwed. Or I could mark it as not being sent out and straight up tell the schools it isn't reflective of me as an applicant, but would that look even worse? I guess it's a lose lose situation, especially after spending the $$$ submitting the primary

 

[sydney1616]

If you're coming from a school of any significant size that pushes out a lot of medical school applicants, the admissions committees will know to expect a letter from you, and not having one will raise eyebrows. It's not necessarily a deal-breaker - particularly as a non-trad - but it's something that you will be expected to explain, and obviously "they wouldn't write me a good letter" is not going to be an adequate explanation.

I'm guessing at this point it's too late to do anything that might change their evaluation, but I find it somewhat hard to believe that they would provide that general evaluation based only on your GPA. Are you sure there's nothing else that was problematic about your collegiate career? A 3.5-3.6 GPA is completely reasonable, so if that really is, in fact, the only reason that the committee would give you that evaluation, they're really doing you a disservice.

No easy option, unfortunately, as there are clear downsides to both choices. Ultimately I think I would skip the committee letter and cross the bridge of trying to explain why you didn't send one when you get there.

There was nothing else problematic, my school just only evaluates courses taken at their institution, not others, and since I became premed late I did not have time to take many upper level science courses and show stronger performance. I did the next year with a 4.0 post bac. The committee asked to see my transcripts from my post bac, so I thought they would take this into consideration, but they didn't, so now I must choose between sending this letter or marking it as unsent on my primary and sending the individuals. Which do you think is worse?

 

[Mad Jack]

Would highly recommend individual LORs. Premedical committees are often more of a burden than a help, it's ridiculous.

 

[efle]

I'd skip the committee letter

 

[Lawpy]

Would highly recommend individual LORs. Premedical committees are often more of a burden than a help, it's ridiculous.

I'd skip the committee letter

I wasn't expecting this and already included the committee letter on my submitted primary which I submitted early. I can't delete this only mark it as not being sent out so I guess I'm totally screwed. Or I could mark it as not being sent out and straight up tell the schools it isn't reflective of me as an applicant, but would that look even worse? I guess it's a lose lose situation, especially after spending the $$$ submitting the primary

Wait OP, you already included the committee letter in your submitted AMCAS primary? Wouldn't that answer your question since there's no way of withdrawing the committee letter and switching to individual letters? Curious to see what @gonnif has to say from a logistical perspective.

 

[sydney1616]

Wait OP, you already included the committee letter in your submitted AMCAS primary? Wouldn't that answer your question since there's no way of withdrawing the committee letter and switching to individual letters? Curious to see what @gonnif has to say from a logistical perspective.

Yeah I just edited my original post. I agree with you. Apparently at DO schools you can delete entries but for AMCAS you can only mark as "unsent". I see it as worse to mark it as "unsent" b/c that would look like the committee refused to write one at all which is the worst case scenario. I included the letter in my primary after personally speaking with 2 members of the committee who told me they took the good academic performance outside of their institution into consideration for non-trads, and to send them the transcripts for verification.
The real reason for me not to send the letter would be b/c it is not fully representative of me as an applicant, not b/c of a refusal, but it would look way worse.
Thanks for the input everyone. Bad situation in general just gotta swallow the bitter pill. I doubt my school will budge as they are obsessed with stats and not very supportive of pre-med students.

 

[sydney1616]

If letter has been assigned by the applicant and the letter has been uploaded to AMCAS by the writer, there is nothing to stop the letter from being received by the schools

It hasn't been uploaded yet; the committee meets up in August to write the letter but they let me know about their evaluation and asked if I want to have them write the letter or wait a year and address the reservation. Which is the exact same thing they told me last year, and the advice that I followed. They told me they would take this into account but unfortunately they didn't, the "reservation" they specify and the entire message is the exact same as last year.

Still, I guess I should follow through with the letter since it's already listed there and schools will see that.

 

[mwsapphire]

Can we talk about how they think a 3.5 sGPA with an UW trend is not good enough?
Can we talk about that for a second?
Am I nuts or is that just absurd?

 

[sydney1616]

If you are sure that the committee will not submit the letter, then you can "stop it" by telling the schools it wont be coming BUT if the committee sends it, then it will be sent to the med schools. So tell me to wait a year.,

This is one of the reasons I tell applicants do not assign a letter until after it has been uploaded to AMCAS.

@gonnif So you think it's better to not have the letter sent to the schools even though it has been assigned and schools would see that listed? It won't even be written until August and I can tell them not to submit it.

All my individual LOR's were submitted to them like last year though so I guess I would also have to contact my LOR writers, pray they have the letters saved somewhere and use Interfolio as suggested above