RE: Late Interview for Pre-Professional Committee Letter

[ravupadh]

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Hey there,

My college's Health Profession Committee requires an interview before they can write a letter for me. The thing is that they've scheduled the interview for me during the last week of September. Now I know that a lot of schools require the letter. But I feel that's a little too late. I've already sent in most of my secondaries I'm just waiting on this letter. Should I just cancel the interview and send my letters individually? Thanks.

 

[Don15]

They will prob take all or most of October to write it and you won't be complete at the schools until November. Personally, I would have sent the individual letters a long time ago.

 

[ravupadh]

They will prob take all or most of October to write it and you won't be complete at the schools until November. Personally, I would have sent the individual letters a long time ago.

Well they "say" that the usual amount of time they take to write a letter is one week. But again that must vary from situation to situation.

 

[Etorphine]

if I were in your shoes I would not apply this cycle.

 

[ravupadh]

I'd like any other advice besides you don't have a chance and don't apply this year. I already took a year off and I'm doing a Masters in the mean time I don't plan on taking another one off. Besides, I have a 3.5 GPA and a 32 MCAT so I think I have a fairly decent chance at the lower tier schools I've applied to.

 

[ATPase8]

Do most applicants from your school get the committee letter? The drawback is that it may raise eyebrows if everyone from your school is getting this letter and you bypass them

 

[zwitterion34]

if I were in your shoes I would not apply this cycle.

I would agree with Etorphine. Having your application complete by October is cutting it real close unless your stats are amazing. i.e. < 3.8 GPA, 35 MCAT score.

 

[ppappui]

Do most applicants from your school get the committee letter? The drawback is that it may raise eyebrows if everyone from your school is getting this letter and you bypass them

I have to agree with this statement. The adcom will think that if your school does a committee letter, then what are you doing not getting it? Even if you get to get the committee letter, it does take more than a week that they're telling you. It takes time until your interviewer's info goes to the committee, then they write the letter, then they have to release it, and that turnaround would take approximately a month at the earliest, I would say. Even if they do it super quick and you get it within a week, just like they said, that would mean your LORs would be in around mid October, and your application will be marked complete later than that, and will be reviewed even later. That is really late, cause you'll be ready around late October/early November.

Unless you're a really strong applicant with great GPA, MCAT score and tons of ECs, I would not encourage applying this year; you might be wasting your time and money.

I understand it's frustrating to wait another year after spending a year off already, but the fact is that you will be really behind in the cycle applying this year. If you do apply this year, I wish you the best of luck.