Secondary Apps and LORs

[trinitee22]

Right now I'm compiling all the materials I need that the Pre-Med Committee at my school had required and I had a question about LORs. I was fortunate enough to have a bunch of my professors (way more than what the committee required) write letters of recommendation on my behalf to be submitted to the committee. I know that the committee then uses those, along with an interview and MCAT scores to submit an overall letter on your behalf to AMCAS as part of your primary.

My question is, when (hopefully) the secondary applications start coming in from the various schools, do those schools request additional letters of recommendation from you? I ask this because there was a part of the form that my school's Pre-Med committee has on the recommendation form that says you waive the right to ask for another letter of recommendation from whichever professors you use to write LORs for any other purpose. Is this true?

I'm asking because I really don't know anything about this so any advice would be great.

Thanks!

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[bodonid]

I am not familiar with the waiver you are talking about, but if your school is like mine, your file will be sent with professors' recommendations and the recommendations of the committee. On top of this, and not included in the packet, schools often ask for a couple more, usually being one or more of: someone in the healthcare industry (a doctor), someone who has observed your leadership/community service/etc., a character reference, etc., (the point being these would generally not be professors in your university). Some schools will be satisfied with your packet as-is, and only require letters from individuals whose institutions don't use this kind of system. Other schools may (rarely) ask you for more LORs from teachers. This will depend on the # of letters included in your committee packet (mine had 6, including the committee eval. yours?)

 

[trinitee22]

I will have 8 total and the committee letter, 6 were professors I had in various science, which includes my research mentor, and non-science subjects in college ( I was also a French minor) and 2 from the directors of a lab at the Medical School I've been working at for the last couple of years. I tried to tapped into all the resources I had. So I was concerned that if I end up in a situation where I need more, I'd really have to dig deep to find others.

 

[scarletgirl777]

I am not familiar with the waiver you are talking about, but if your school is like mine, your file will be sent with professors' recommendations and the recommendations of the committee. On top of this, and not included in the packet, schools often ask for a couple more, usually being one or more of: someone in the healthcare industry (a doctor), someone who has observed your leadership/community service/etc., a character reference, etc., (the point being these would generally not be professors in your university). Some schools will be satisfied with your packet as-is, and only require letters from individuals whose institutions don't use this kind of system. Other schools may (rarely) ask you for more LORs from teachers. This will depend on the # of letters included in your committee packet (mine had 6, including the committee eval. yours?)

How common is this asking of MORE letters ??? I'm already putting non-academic letters in my premed committee packet (most of my letter-writers never officially taught me a class even if they are professors), so that would also kind of suck for me.

 

[rowerlauren]

Most schools do not ask for an excess of letters. I am pretty sure that the schools ask for 3 or less letters. I go to Wash U (where we have a LOT of pre-meds and they only require 3 letters of recommendation 2 from science faculty(includes research and med school) and 1 from non-science faculty. If any med schools asked for more recommendations than 3 I'm pretty sure that that recommendation requirement would be passed down to us just so that they don't have to ask for more later.

That being said if you feel like you have a lot of professors that really know you and could talk about your amazing qualities then go for it! 8 is going overboard and if all the adcoms read your recommendation letters I will be surprised. They really focus on the committee letter because that summarizes the individual letters and then talks about more stuff if you have had meetings with your pre-med committee (yes we have one and they team up to interview us all and write our committee letter after getting about 10 essays from us and they have all of our recommendations, so they tend to know us really well).

I am more that covered by having 5 recommendations, but they are only people that I really know and have interacted with me for at least 2 years. 2 of them being profs that I was in their class and then TAed, 1 being my PI who is my advisor, another being a professor I have had at least once a year since freshman year and the last is my coach. So really if you know your professors just go with the people that know you and can shed light on what you are like so they don't be stuck making generalities that can be said about anyone who aced their course.