question about LOR for IM residency

[Iroquoiz]

Hi all,

I'm a fourth year DO student applying IM this season and I have a quick question about LOR requirement for IM residencies. I currently have a letter from third year peds attending and two letters from third year IM attendings. I'm planning to use one of my IM attending letters as the chair letter since I was told by my school that clerkship director can count as a chair letter because we don't have a department of medicine at our school. So that leaves me with a total of 3 letters, should I try to secure one more letter from fourth year rotations (didn't really connect with my attendings during my subI last month, currently on a subspecialty elective where I'm barely presenting any patients and will be doing another subspecialty elective next month before ERAS opens). I'm trying to match at an academic program ideally in the Northeast region.

Appreciate the help!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[DoReMiFaSo]

Depends on how good you think your current 3 letters are. If you were to apply to my institution (East Coast tertiary center), I would much prefer to see 3 good letters than 3 good plus 1 meh letter. If you think your current LORs are strong, then you are done, don't bother getting a 4th. If you think you can get a 4th letter that's stronger than one of the current 3, then recommend to substitute out the weaker letter, rather than using 4 LORs total. Best of luck.