Question regarding limited LoRs spots and many options!

[masnerj]

Here's the deal:

I am applying this upcoming cycle and my school has a committee whose process starts in the spring semester so I have started to think about who I want to get LoRs from and what combination will be the best for my application. The committee only allows 3 letters to be included (so essentially I am capped at 3 because from what I know the committee letter trumps most medical schools' LoR requirement, correct?).

2 of the letters are basically set in stone and I will be asking them in January (expect them to say yes without a problem: My PI (working in his lab for almost 3 years, done lots of great work in his lab and my post-doc mentor should be helping him write it!) and an upper level bio professor (got an A in his class and have been TAing his class for 2 semesters now, should also be pretty good). My issue comes with the third and final slot, for which I have narrowed down to my two best options:

• A second upper class bio professor (taken two classes with her, gotten some kind of an A in both but from what I hear through other people, she asks students to draft the letter on their own before she looks over it and makes changes) -- not sure how I feel about this to be honest....
• My boss from an on-campus part time (10 hrs/week) job (she holds a pretty high administrator role in the university) who I have been working under for over 2 years now. The work is a mix of administrator type work and interesting leadership/volunteering type activities that she could talk about and I believe she is also a good writer as well. I don't know her THAT well or anything but well enough to get at-least a decently strong letter from.

What do you guys think I should do? My gut tells me to go with the latter due to me knowing her for longer and she could speak to non-academic personal qualities related to leadership/community work/etc. At the same time, I don't know if the one science academic letter would be enough though. Does my PI's letter count as another "academic" one due to his field being bio-related?

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[infectiousdisease101]

Letter limit varies from school to school. The general minimum is 3: 2 science 1 non-science. In other words, these letters should be sent to all your schools. If the school only allows 3, you only send those 3. If more: send more. Some schools only require 1 science letter, so if you want to sub one science letter for another, it's up to you.

Is there a service that uploads all your letters as a letter packet? I'm not talking about the services some schools offer for their students, but one any students have access to.

 

[masnerj]

Letter limit varies from school to school. The general minimum is 3: 2 science 1 non-science. In other words, these letters should be sent to all your schools. If the school only allows 3, you only send those 3. If more: send more. Some schools only require 1 science letter, so if you want to sub one science letter for another, it's up to you.

Is there a service that uploads all your letters as a letter packet? I'm not talking about the services some schools offer for their students, but one any students have access to.

To be honest, I am a little confused by your reply. From what I understand (and I could be completely wrong about this), schools typically have a LoR requirement. This requirement, like you mention, is typically a minimum of 1 science letter and 1 non-science letter but I think most schools require or recommend more than that. However, I thought this was the individual, non-committee applicant requirement. I thought that if your school has a pre-med committee that writes up their own letter and also includes additional letters of my choosing (my school only allows for me to add 3 of my own to this), then you are essentially "waived" from the individual applicant requirement? In that case, it wouldn't really matter what 3 I pick as long as I include atleast 1 science professor and the PI one (considering I have worked under him for so long).

If you are referring to an online service like Interfolio or something where I can upload a letter to independently and add that independently to my application, I am not sure if I am even allowed to do such a thing considering its technically circumventing my committee letter to a degree.

 

[infectiousdisease101]

Best I give an example. USC only allows 3 letters. So in that case you would send your 3 set in stone letters (2 science 1 non-science), unless USC only asks for 1 science and 1 non-science letter, then you can substitute your other science letter for another letter. Most medical schools require at least 1 science and 1 non-science, but a lot require at least 2 science letters. If you just send those 3 letters to every school, you've met the LOR requirements, no matter what school you send them to. If you want to only send 1 science letter to schools that only require 1, you have to look up schools individually to see if they want 1 science or 2 science letters.

As for a committee letter, it includes all individual letters to compose a committee packet. The committee packet is ONE upload that contains ALL of your letters. Since it is one upload, it would count as 1 "letter". So all your letters will go to all the schools you applied to and make your life easier. So even if my packet has 10 letters, it's still counted as 1 letter by AMCAS and every school gets all my letters.

As for my question about a service that converts all your letters into one packet: won't circumvent a committee letter. But I'm saying if a service exists to convert all your letters into one packet, it would make life easier for people who do not attend schools with a letter packet or committee letter service so they can send that one packet to ALL their schools instead of having to individually choose which schools to send which letters to.

EDIT: If you have a committee letter. This post is pointless. It's one packet of letters that AMCAS will count as 1 letter/upload that will be sent to all your schools.

 

[calivianya]

I would pick the second upper level bio professor for the committee letter. Most schools definitely want you to have two science professor letters. I would also get a letter from your boss, but have it be independent of the committee letter. It is not going to hurt you to have a regular letter and a committee letter, IMO, and your boss will provide insight into who you are as a person that the other people can't.

 

[infectiousdisease101]

Oh crap. I misread I thought you were asking about AMCAS. I really don't get why the committee won't allow supplemental letters to be included in your packet. Sorry, brain dead from MCAT studying.