yum-yum sauce
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Hello,
I have been reading a lot about letters of interest and intent on here and have a few questions. So a little background: I want to send a letter of intent to my top choice school and a letter of interest to my 2nd and 3rd choice. I have not been accepted yet. However, statistically speaking I have a pretty good chance of getting accepted at at least one school based on my number of interviews.
It seems like the wisdom on here is that a letter of intent means very little if you have not already been accepted (some say the school also needs to be higher ranked). Is this also true for MD-PhD programs? I wasn’t sure since the general applicant pool is much smaller with the people who do get interviews generally getting more than the average MD applicant. Thus possibly making these letters a little more meaningful.
Also, are all letters of intent created equal? For example, in the letter of intent that I wrote (about 1-2 pages long) in depth about every reason why I wanted to go there. I mentioned certain researchers that I interviewed with and how I would like to work in their lab, the reasons why, and how I might be a good fit for that lab. I talked about its proximity to my family and how that is important to me, the affordability of owning a house/starting a family, the culture of the school, and how I thought the structure of the program was perfect for MD-PhDs. My intuition tells me that schools would like to see this level of thought into why they are your top choice and that it might make them more convinced that you are being honest with your intent to attend their school. But I’ve also read that keeping it short and sweet is also a good idea.
Finally, do higher ranked schools generally care less about these because everyone wants to go to them?
Thanks!
I have been reading a lot about letters of interest and intent on here and have a few questions. So a little background: I want to send a letter of intent to my top choice school and a letter of interest to my 2nd and 3rd choice. I have not been accepted yet. However, statistically speaking I have a pretty good chance of getting accepted at at least one school based on my number of interviews.
It seems like the wisdom on here is that a letter of intent means very little if you have not already been accepted (some say the school also needs to be higher ranked). Is this also true for MD-PhD programs? I wasn’t sure since the general applicant pool is much smaller with the people who do get interviews generally getting more than the average MD applicant. Thus possibly making these letters a little more meaningful.
Also, are all letters of intent created equal? For example, in the letter of intent that I wrote (about 1-2 pages long) in depth about every reason why I wanted to go there. I mentioned certain researchers that I interviewed with and how I would like to work in their lab, the reasons why, and how I might be a good fit for that lab. I talked about its proximity to my family and how that is important to me, the affordability of owning a house/starting a family, the culture of the school, and how I thought the structure of the program was perfect for MD-PhDs. My intuition tells me that schools would like to see this level of thought into why they are your top choice and that it might make them more convinced that you are being honest with your intent to attend their school. But I’ve also read that keeping it short and sweet is also a good idea.
Finally, do higher ranked schools generally care less about these because everyone wants to go to them?
Thanks!
