Secondary / LOR Question

[dcc23]

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I have tried finding the answer to this, but have yet to be successful. How advantageous is it to submit secondaries to schools before the LOR are ready? Will most schools wait until the designated letters have arrived before looking at the application, or will they go ahead and review it and just kind of verify with the letters later? I'm trying to decide between submitting now or waiting till I have the letters so I have more time to polish essays.

 

[Lya]

For most schools, if not all, they don't designate your application as complete until they receive all documents including LORs. So, at the end of the day, they will wait until they receive your LORs as well as secondaries.

I am in the similar situation as yours, but I tried to submit secondaries as early as I can, instead of waiting till LORs.

 

[dcc23]

For most schools, if not all, they don't designate your application as complete until they receive all documents including LORs. So, at the end of the day, they will wait until they receive your LORs as well as secondaries.

I am in the similar situation as yours, but I tried to submit secondaries as early as I can, instead of waiting till LORs.

Thanks for your response. Would you recommend only designating the letters the schools require and then adding additional letters as they arrive later so schools will go ahead and look when they have the requested letters?

 

[Lya]

Thanks for your response. Would you recommend only designating the letters the schools require and then adding additional letters as they arrive later so schools will go ahead and look when they have the requested letters?

It depends.

My college, for instance, doesn't allow adding and re-submitting letters once they are submitted initially. So, in my case, all the letters will go to schools only once.

However, some med schools do accept additional LORs as an "update," so if you know there is another strong letter to be submitted later, you may send these as updates after you submit the initial required letters and secondaries. However, other med schools might not accept this type of updates, so you should check the websites and/or e-mail schools.


If you are waiting for additional personal letters (not science or non-science letters), and if you know for sure you can submit those letters properly (e.g., can you submit them through AMCAS/interfolio/etc. instead of e-mails that med schools might not accept as a valid method?), I think it is a good strategy to submit the required ones early and send additional ones as updates.

 

[dcc23]

It depends.

My college, for instance, doesn't allow adding and re-submitting letters once they are submitted initially. So, in my case, all the letters will go to schools only once.

However, some med schools do accept additional LORs as an "update," so if you know there is another strong letter to be submitted later, you may send these as updates after you submit the initial required letters and secondaries. However, other med schools might not accept this type of updates, so you should check the websites and/or e-mail schools.


If you are waiting for additional personal letters (not science or non-science letters), and if you know for sure you can submit those letters properly (e.g., can you submit them through AMCAS/interfolio/etc. instead of e-mails that med schools might not accept as a valid method?), I think it is a good strategy to submit the required ones early and send additional ones as updates.

Good points, I'll have to look at different school carefully and decide the best course of action for each as I go. Thanks.