Quick LOR Questions

[peterish]

I'm applying this year and am a bit confused about the whole LOR process. Are they supposed to be mailed to the schools right after the AMCAS is filed, or do we wait until the schools request our secondaries?

My other question is that if my school has a Premed Committee, and I choose not to bother with them, opting instead to have my professors/bosses write and send the LOR's directly, how negatively will this be seen by adcoms?

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[spygal]

If you choose not to use your school's committee, you will likely have to explain why to all schools. (If I recall correctly, you have to explain your reasoning on AMCAS, but maybe it was the secondaries.) I don't know if not using your premed committee would be looked upon in a negative light, but you should have a good reason why you are not doing so.

Secondly, get the LORs sent ASAP after you file AMCAS. Schools have to process every part of your application, and since you ideally want to submit your secondaries within a week or two of receiving them, you don't want to have your application held up because your LORs aren't processed.

 

[Catalystik]

Secondly, get the LORs sent ASAP after you file AMCAS. Schools have to process every part of your application, and since you ideally want to submit your secondaries within a week or two of receiving them, you don't want to have your application held up because your LORs aren't processed.

Each school's secondary will specify what individual LORs they require. If you don't use a committee letter, be sure you send the correct letters to the correct destinations.

 

[alwaysaangel]

Use the committee letter - not doing so always requires an explanation and you really don't want to have to explain yourself any more than necessary in this process.

 

[emaj1n]

If you choose not to use your school's committee, you will likely have to explain why to all schools. (If I recall correctly, you have to explain your reasoning on AMCAS, but maybe it was the secondaries.) I don't know if not using your premed committee would be looked upon in a negative light, but you should have a good reason why you are not doing so.

Secondly, get the LORs sent ASAP after you file AMCAS. Schools have to process every part of your application, and since you ideally want to submit your secondaries within a week or two of receiving them, you don't want to have your application held up because your LORs aren't processed.

Not using your committee will, in nearly all cases, look negative. Schools will want to know why you "didn't bother" to use the committee. Did you just not feel like taking the time? Did they not like you because of something you did? Did you miss the committee's deadlines and have to work around them? These are the questions that schools will ask. They expect applicants to go through committee because it's a primary screener.

Secondly, you don't send LORs ASAP after you file your AMCAS. Schools don't want your letters then, and they might not even have a file set up for you. Wait until they send you a secondary and send the letters back with that. The secondary may even specify how many letters they want and from whom. LORs are part of the secondary application, not primary (AMCAS).