Should applicants be allowed to view their letters of recommendation?

[theKingLT]

I recently had the opportunity to view 3 of my letters of recommendation (with permission) that were written for an independent scholarship I'm applying to. All 3 were from letter writers I used for med school apps and I suspect these letters didn't vary much from those upload to AMCAS. With that said the quality varied significantly. One from a professor and one from a volunteer coordinator were both fantastic, highlighting a multitude of personal qualities and referencing me as "the best they have". The third, from a sports coach, was very average, talking about my gpa, little specifics, repetitive in a generic way, and overall very lazily written. The thing is the third one was what I would have thought would be the strongest. I've spent thousands of hours with this coach, worked objectively harder than any other athletes on the team, made more progress, am a key part of the team success, team-player, national awards, etc. The coach loves me, it just doesn't show well in the letter. Anyways, one letter hasn't hindered anything and I've had a successful cycle, but it's got me thinking. Someone could easily be a great student and pick what seem like great letter writers but get 3/3 really crappy letters just from writers being lazy and generic--and that could really detriment their application. Should applicants be able to view their letters and select the best ones?

I'm still thinking no, but just curious about others' thoughts.

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[965978]

Some people on here are gonna have very strong feelings about this

My personal opinion is that you shouldn’t get to see your letters. BUT I think it’s extremely unfair for someone reviewing your application to reject you completely based on a single person’s opinion. Especially if your other letters are spectacular.

Not to mention that the same quality can be viewed positively or negatively. What one person perceives as “outgoing”, someone else may perceive as “obnoxious”. What someone perceives as “uptight”, someone else may perceive as “thorough”.

 

[whorobbedthewoods]

I recently had the opportunity to view 3 of my letters of recommendation (with permission) that were written for an independent scholarship I'm applying to. All 3 were from letter writers I used for med school apps and I suspect these letters didn't vary much from those upload to AMCAS. With that said the quality varied significantly. One from a professor and one from a volunteer coordinator were both fantastic, highlighting a multitude of personal qualities and referencing me as "the best they have". The third, from a sports coach, was very average, talking about my gpa, little specifics, repetitive in a generic way, and overall very lazily written. The thing is the third one was what I would have thought would be the strongest. I've spent thousands of hours with this coach, worked objectively harder than any other athletes on the team, made more progress, am a key part of the team success, team-player, national awards, etc. The coach loves me, it just doesn't show well in the letter. Anyways, one letter hasn't hindered anything and I've had a successful cycle, but it's got me thinking. Someone could easily be a great student and pick what seem like great letter writers but get 3/3 really crappy letters just from writers being lazy and generic--and that could really detriment their application. Should applicants be able to view their letters and select the best ones?

I'm still thinking no, but just curious about others' thoughts.

Is your coach a good writer?

For my letter writers, I had two criteria: 1) outstanding content, and 2) excellent writing skills. Not "passable," not "technically sound." Excellent. Skilled writing is evident in everything from emails to class announcements to syllabi to single-author publications. A person might absolutely love and value you, but if they don't write well, they're not useful to you as a recommender. I think it's your responsibility to gauge this before you ask them to write for you.

To answer your main question: naw, you shouldn't be able to read your letters. I know all of my recommenders very well and have no doubt they had only positive things to say. Still, only a couple of them offered (some months later) to show me the letters. Some people will simply not feel comfortable expressing the whole truth if they know you're going to see it, even if--maybe especially if--it's glowing. They may not want to sing your praises if they know you're gonna read it, internalize it, and get cocky.

 

[theKingLT]

Is your coach a good writer?

For my letter writers, I had two criteria: 1) outstanding content, and 2) excellent writing skills. Not "passable," not "technically sound." Excellent. Skilled writing is evident in everything from emails to class announcements to syllabi to single-author publications. A person might absolutely love and value you, but if they don't write well, they're not useful to you as a recommender. I think it's your responsibility to gauge this before you ask them to write for you.

To answer your main question: naw, you shouldn't be able to read your letters. I know all of my recommenders very well and have no doubt they had only positive things to say. Still, only a couple of them offered (some months later) to show me the letters. Some people will simply not feel comfortable expressing the whole truth if they know you're going to see it, even if--maybe especially if--it's glowing. They may not want to sing your praises if they know you're gonna read it, internalize it, and get cocky.

Makes sense and I had basically the same train of thought on why they should remain private. I've never seen anything written from my coach before so I wouldn't know about writing abilities but based on the letter they're not that great. It's interesting though that one of the other writers is a non-native English speaker and it's very evident in the writing, yet the letter is still very strong

 

[Pantsareamyth]

I was once asked in an interview if I had read one of my letters. Turns out one of my letter writers said something along the lines of " I think Kanorr would be bored by the difficulties of medical school." I got in, but man was I sweating. My school doesn't have a pre-med center/committee that reads letters for you or makes a packet which I would've loved. I don't think you should be able to read the letters, but I wish there was someone who could've screened it for me.

 

[freedoctor17]

I was once asked in an interview if I had read one of my letters. Turns out one of my letter writers said something along the lines of " I think Kanorr would be bored by the difficulties of medical school." I got in, but man was I sweating. My school doesn't have a pre-med center/committee that reads letters for you or makes a packet which I would've loved. I don't think you should be able to read the letters, but I wish there was someone who could've screened it for me.

Similar thing happened to me! Caught me off guard with something in a letter and i had no clue it was in there. Also ended up getting in still haha.

 

[deleted962973]

Might be unpopular but I’m inclined to say yes. A few years ago, I applied for a small, competitive research award through my university. The award was named after a person who donated a significant amount of money to the school. I emailed a mentor to see if they’d be willing to submit a letter on my behalf, and they accidentally sent the letter to me instead of to the award committee, which is the only reason I was able to catch their mistake.

This person repeatedly spelled the name of the award wrong- think something like calling it the John Blueburn Award instead of the George Blackbeard Award- and I think if they had submitted it, I would’ve been pretty swiftly rejected for not even getting the name of the award right. Even though I had pretty explicitly told my mentor what it was called! It sucks that utter carelessness on someone else’s part could cost you something you’ve worked hard for. The only reason my chances weren’t ruined was because I was able to see my letter.

 

[theKingLT]

Might be unpopular but I’m inclined to say yes. A few years ago, I applied for a small, competitive research award through my university. The award was named after a person who donated a significant amount of money to the school. I emailed a mentor to see if they’d be willing to submit a letter on my behalf, and they accidentally sent the letter to me instead of to the award committee, which is the only reason I was able to catch their mistake.

This person repeatedly spelled the name of the award wrong- think something like calling it the John Blueburn Award instead of the George Blackbeard Award- and I think if they had submitted it, I would’ve been pretty swiftly rejected for not even getting the name of the award right. Even though I had pretty explicitly told my mentor what it was called! It sucks that utter carelessness on someone else’s part could cost you something you’ve worked hard for. The only reason my chances weren’t ruined was because I was able to see my letter.

Personally if I were reviewing an application I would not hold something like that against an applicant. If the applicant messes up the name in one of their essays, that would be an issue, but letter writers shouldn't be held accountable for things like that IMO. Still it would definitely be less than ideal and just because I wouldn't care as a reviewer doesn't mean others wouldn't!

 

[deleted962973]

Personally if I were reviewing an application I would not hold something like that against an applicant. If the applicant messes up the name in one of their essays, that would be an issue, but letter writers shouldn't be held accountable for things like that IMO. Still it would definitely be less than ideal and just because I wouldn't care as a reviewer doesn't mean others wouldn't!

I think when it comes down to really competitive programs where people are looking for an excuse to reject you, it’ll be easy enough for the Gates-Cambridge committee to reject an applicant whose letter writer says he’s applying for the Rhodes.

In med school apps, obviously they won’t be listing a school name since the letter should apply to all med schools, but there are other careless errors a writer could make that could be used against an applicant. Seems silly to me that the process of recommendation is shrouded in such obscurity.

 

[Lawpy]

It's sad that admissions is heavily influenced by the writing quality of letters that applicants usually don't have access to seeing.

 

[lalalallala]

This is a tough question because on one hand - people won't feel like they can be honest if you read the letter, but on the other hand you should be able to know if the letter you think is going to be good is actually good or not.

I got a letter from a surgeon who I know very well and who I know to be a very bright and professional guy, but for some reason while the content of the letter was flattering the way it was written was just awful. I ended up send it back to him with a couple of suggestions for how to rephrase which he said he 'loved' and then he sent in the revised edition. But man I can only imagine if he had sent the original...

When I was applying to college, my English teacher gave me a copy of the letter she sent on my behalf. I didn't ask - she just gave it to me. I don't know if she did this to make me feel good (the letter was really nice) or whether it was because she believed that I should get to read what she was submitting. Either way it was comforting to read this strong letter.

I think the issue is especially difficult when the letter writer isn't familiar with the letter writing process for medical school. The coach that OP mentioned, for example, likely doesn't know too much about what exactly admissions committee members will be reading for. This is probably something that should be taken into account when picking a letter writer or speaking to them beforehand about the expectations for medical school letters

 

[gyngyn]

We can hardly expect a candid evaluation as it is.
Letters that have been approved by the candidate would be even more worthless.

Judgement is an important part of the process...
Send them this and then ask if they can write you a strong letter: https://www.aamc.org/download/349990/data/lettersguidelinesbrochure.pdf
It gives them a graceful opportunity to decline.

 

[DrFortiusNatando]

I am starting to give less credence to letters as time goes on. It is apparent that more and more letter-writers ask the students to write their own letters. This is completely against the spirit of LOR's. I see this especially with bosses and coaches, who appear to be too busy and too intimidated to write the letters. The link provided by @gyngyn is helpful for these people. I think that applicants should pass over any letter writer who asks the student to write their own letter.

And even committee letters are problematic. They favor students who are unashamedly able to brown-nose professors and pre-med advisory deans.

 

[sweatytshirt]

My school doesn't have a committee to look at our letters, so my bud and I just sent our letters to each other. We didn't tell each other anything specific, but I did save him from using a doctor's LOR that was very poorly written with multiple typos and grammatical errors.

 

[theKingLT]

We can hardly expect a candid evaluation as it is.
Letters that have been approved by the candidate would be even more worthless.

Judgement is an important part of the process...
Send them this and then ask if they can write you a strong letter: https://www.aamc.org/download/349990/data/lettersguidelinesbrochure.pdf
It gives them a graceful opportunity to decline.

I sent a similar link to my coach for the scholarship to which I was applying. It was very clear not to include metrics like gpa. He clearly did not read it. Not to say communication about letter quality is useless, but rather for people reading, I think you need to be verbally explicit with the purpose of the letter in addition to whatever materials you send.

 

[965978]

I am starting to give less credence to letters as time goes on. It is apparent that more and more letter-writers ask the students to write their own letters. This is completely against the spirit of LOR's. I see this especially with bosses and coaches, who appear to be too busy and too intimidated to write the letters. The link provided by @gyngyn is helpful for these people. I think that applicants should pass over any letter writer who asks the student to write their own letter.

And even committee letters are problematic. They favor students who are unashamedly able to brown-nose professors and pre-med advisory deans.

At my college there is a high failure rate of introductory bio, high enough to fill a medium sized lecture hall. Several students end up having to make it up in the summer in order to continue towards a biology-related major because the school refuses to offer it in the second term of the academic year. I, along with several other students, found this to be cruel because the school is unfairly forcing students to spend thousands of dollars and half their summer away from home. A lot of the professors were against this too and the students wanted to make a petition. But the professors advised us not to say anything because they didn’t want the administration threatening us with suspension or bad committe letters for graduate/professional schools. The professors were very protective of us but they unfortunately had no power 🙁

 

[Goro]

I recently had the opportunity to view 3 of my letters of recommendation (with permission) that were written for an independent scholarship I'm applying to. All 3 were from letter writers I used for med school apps and I suspect these letters didn't vary much from those upload to AMCAS. With that said the quality varied significantly. One from a professor and one from a volunteer coordinator were both fantastic, highlighting a multitude of personal qualities and referencing me as "the best they have". The third, from a sports coach, was very average, talking about my gpa, little specifics, repetitive in a generic way, and overall very lazily written. The thing is the third one was what I would have thought would be the strongest. I've spent thousands of hours with this coach, worked objectively harder than any other athletes on the team, made more progress, am a key part of the team success, team-player, national awards, etc. The coach loves me, it just doesn't show well in the letter. Anyways, one letter hasn't hindered anything and I've had a successful cycle, but it's got me thinking. Someone could easily be a great student and pick what seem like great letter writers but get 3/3 really crappy letters just from writers being lazy and generic--and that could really detriment their application. Should applicants be able to view their letters and select the best ones?

I'm still thinking no, but just curious about others' thoughts.

People who write letters have to be able to be honest and clear about the person they're writing about. Hence, it is incumbent upon applicants to make good choices and choose as their recommenders only the people who can write well of them.

EDIT: "BUT I think it’s extremely unfair for someone reviewing your application to reject you completely based on a single person’s opinion. Especially if your other letters are spectacular."

Those of us who have to read these things know that bad LORs are so rare that when we see them, it's indeed a red flag.

And note to Clammy: life's not fair.

 

[gyngyn]

I sent a similar link to my coach for the scholarship to which I was applying. It was very clear not to include metrics like gpa. He clearly did not read it. Not to say communication about letter quality is useless, but rather for people reading, I think you need to be verbally explicit with the purpose of the letter in addition to whatever materials you send.

There must have been something that made you believe that he would be a good evaluator.
Did you send the link before asking if he could write a strong letter?
Were there signs that he might not be able to do so?

 

[965978]

There must have been something that made you believe that he would be a good evaluator.
Did you send the link before asking if he could write a strong letter?
Were there signs that he might not be able to do so?

When this has happened to people I know it’s because the person writing their letter wants to give an honest opinion and the person’s strengths and weaknesses. They usually don’t realize that it will get the applicant auto-rejected if there is anything remotely bad. The person is usually not in a STEM or healthcare related field.

 

[gyngyn]

When this has happened to people I know it’s because the person writing their letter wants to give an honest opinion and the person’s strengths and weaknesses. They usually don’t realize that it will get the applicant auto-rejected if there is anything remotely bad. The person is usually not in a STEM or healthcare related field.

We actually are looking for an honest appraisal...
Otherwise we would ask for testimonial letters.

 

[965978]

We actually are looking for an honest appraisal...
Otherwise we would ask for testimonial letters.

The problem is that an honest appraisal would require mentioning weaknesses about the applicant. If an LOR writer can’t think of at least one weakness then I would argue that he or she hasn’t known the applicant well enough to be an LOR writer.

And yet, having a weakness in one of your LORs is lethal.

 

[deleted938090]

This is why I think letters of recommendations are overemphasized in admissions. Everyone will have inflated statements, and saying "the best they have" doesn't have a proper frame of reference. It is also very difficult to capture the individual fully with 2-3 letters of reference.
I wouldn't overthink this too much, but now you know who you should ask for a LOR.

 

[whorobbedthewoods]

And yet, having a weakness in one of your LORs is lethal.

Says who?

Among the desired qualities listed in the guidelines from AAMC and many individual schools are things like "capacity for improvement" and "resilience." One of my letters said something along the lines of "I've watched whorobbedthewoods struggle with confidence issues, sometimes to the detriment of her academic performance. I expect this will be an ongoing struggle for her throughout medical school and her clinical practice. But I also know that she is keenly aware of this quality in herself, and I've been impressed as she's worked to overcome it." The jury is out and this was not lethal for me. In fact, I would be surprised if it wasn't viewed as something positive.

Maybe if your weaknesses are that you're a kleptomaniac, a compulsive liar, a drug addict, or a sociopath, then yeah. That's probably lethal.

 

[gyngyn]

The problem is that an honest appraisal would require mentioning weaknesses about the applicant. If an LOR writer can’t think of at least one weakness then I would argue that he or she hasn’t known the applicant well enough to be an LOR writer.

And yet, having a weakness in one of your LORs is lethal.

Yes!
...and no.

Here's the most common "bad" letter: "Although I don't know Clam very well, he was quite insistent that I write him a letter... blah blah, blandness."
Or: "I'm sure if I knew Clam better, I'd be able to write a stronger letter..."

 

[Mad Jack]

If you could see your letters you would pick and choose them and it would encourage writers to be dishonest

 

[Lawpy]

We can hardly expect a candid evaluation as it is.
Letters that have been approved by the candidate would be even more worthless.

Judgement is an important part of the process...
Send them this and then ask if they can write you a strong letter: https://www.aamc.org/download/349990/data/lettersguidelinesbrochure.pdf
It gives them a graceful opportunity to decline.

I am starting to give less credence to letters as time goes on. It is apparent that more and more letter-writers ask the students to write their own letters. This is completely against the spirit of LOR's. I see this especially with bosses and coaches, who appear to be too busy and too intimidated to write the letters. The link provided by @gyngyn is helpful for these people. I think that applicants should pass over any letter writer who asks the student to write their own letter.

And even committee letters are problematic. They favor students who are unashamedly able to brown-nose professors and pre-med advisory deans.

How do applicants have any control over the writing quality of their letter writers if they can't see them? Sure they can give those guidelines to help letter writers draft letters suitably, but letter writers could inadvertently make mistakes or deliver positive statements in a way that's possibly interpreted to be negative by adcoms/reviewers. Also consider language/communication barriers.

Seems like applicants are getting slammed for something beyond their control.

 

[gyngyn]

Seems like applicants are getting slammed for something beyond their control.

We are used to a broad range of letter writing ability. Nobody get "slammed" for what would reasonably be an ESL issue (for example).

 

[DrFortiusNatando]

How do applicants have any control over the writing quality of their letter writers if they can't see them? Sure they can give those guidelines to help letter writers draft letters suitably, but letter writers could inadvertently make mistakes or deliver positive statements in a way that's possibly interpreted to be negative by adcoms/reviewers. Also consider language/communication barriers.

Seems like applicants are getting slammed for something beyond their control.

As reviewers of applications, we just are going to discount the letters more and more, as you are right, it is often out of the applicant's control.

I do think that students do have to have good EQ as to whom to ask for a letter and appropriate social skills in how to ask for letters (ask if the letter writer feels that they know the candidate well enough to write an informative letter for medical school, and provide resources to the letter writer, including AMCAS guidelines, as well as personal statement and cv). But I agree that it is possible that even with the applicant doing everything right, the letter-writers might still fall short.

But LOR's traditionally are not seen by the applicant for many reasons. One of which is even liability. Letter writers certainly do not want to get sued (or even have bad evaluations of their teaching, if they are professors) for letters that do not "help" the applicant enough. Students hold a lot of power over professors these days in terms of teaching evaluations at universities, including postings on ratemyprofessor.com etc.

 

[theKingLT]

There must have been something that made you believe that he would be a good evaluator.
Did you send the link before asking if he could write a strong letter?
Were there signs that he might not be able to do so?

-coach who I've spent thousands of hours with personally
-walked-on to team (no scholarship), worked harder than anyone, discipline exceeding professional and Olympic level athletes, made tons of progress, and became one of the best in the country in my position, nationally recognized.
-huge contributor to team collaboration and mentorship of the new guys
-coach has recognized ALL of the above qualities in various speeches, talks, etc.
-verbally agreed to write a STRONG letter
-I gave the whole spiel on what to focus on., ignore stuff not relevant to our interactions and the sport. Focus on personal qualities, etc.
-last thing that I forgot to mention earlier: coach used to be a high school English teacher some 20+ years ago, so writing abilities should not be an issue

By all objective indications this should have been my strongest letter and I would be crazy to not include it, but the result was a very bland generic "endorsement of candidacy" that lists resume items not relevant to our relationship due to the writer's own laziness. As stated, I've had a successful cycle regardless, but I suspect one of the things that's really helped is the fact that I had 5 LORs in my committee packet and the pre-med advisor organizes them in order of best to worst, so that letter probably got buried and not read. It makes me think not that people should be able to see their letters, but maybe that it should be common practice for people lacking pre-med advisors to have a friend (or neutral party?) read through and select, or even just re-order, the best letters.

 

[gyngyn]

-coach who I've spent thousands of hours with personally
-walked-on to team (no scholarship), worked harder than anyone, discipline exceeding professional and Olympic level athletes, made tons of progress, and became one of the best in the country in my position, nationally recognized.
-huge contributor to team collaboration and mentorship of the new guys
-coach has recognized ALL of the above qualities in various speeches, talks, etc.
-verbally agreed to write a STRONG letter
-I gave the whole spiel on what to focus on., ignore stuff not relevant to our interactions and the sport. Focus on personal qualities, etc.
-last thing that I forgot to mention earlier: coach used to be a high school English teacher some 20+ years ago, so writing abilities should not be an issue

By all objective indications this should have been my strongest letter and I would be crazy to not include it, but the result was a very bland generic "endorsement of candidacy" that lists resume items not relevant to our relationship due to the writer's own laziness. As stated, I've had a successful cycle regardless, but I suspect one of the things that's really helped is the fact that I had 5 LORs in my committee packet and the pre-med advisor organizes them in order of best to worst, so that letter probably got buried and not read. It makes me think not that people should be able to see their letters, but maybe that it should be common practice for people lacking pre-med advisors to have a friend (or neutral party?) read through and select, or even just re-order, the best letters.

Letters are already the most useless component of the application.
Committee letters (with all their inherent flaws) are the preferred modality.
If a school's committee becomes known for sanitizing the content, even these would become useless.

 

[Goro]

How do applicants have any control over the writing quality of their letter writers if they can't see them? Sure they can give those guidelines to help letter writers draft letters suitably, but letter writers could inadvertently make mistakes or deliver positive statements in a way that's possibly interpreted to be negative by adcoms/reviewers. Also consider language/communication barriers.

Seems like applicants are getting slammed for something beyond their control.

But you DO have control over this! You do this by having good judgement in picking your writers, and especially by starting out with the question: "Professor Jones, do you know me well enough to write me a good LOR for my med school app?"

See the wsie Dr Natando's response as well, especially this part: I do think that students do have to have good EQ as to whom to ask for a letter and appropriate social skills in how to ask for letters

 

[-phantom-]

I am starting to give less credence to letters as time goes on. It is apparent that more and more letter-writers ask the students to write their own letters. This is completely against the spirit of LOR's. I see this especially with bosses and coaches, who appear to be too busy and too intimidated to write the letters. The link provided by @gyngyn is helpful for these people. I think that applicants should pass over any letter writer who asks the student to write their own letter.

And even committee letters are problematic. They favor students who are unashamedly able to brown-nose professors and pre-med advisory deans.

I agree this is becoming common practice now, but in a way it's also subtly smart? Since the recommender will also read the letter before signing, you're forced to be honest about your relationship with them. For example, you can't inflate hours or say you did hardcore research when all you did was clean glassware. They may edit things out or even add things. They have less work, the applicant gets a letter in the correct format, and it's still honest unless the recommender likes the applicant so much they themselves embellish, which is something they would've probably done anyway.

I had 6 letters plus a comittee letter (which I think is hands down the best since its 1000% confidential). Of the six, I could've had access to all of them (they asked if I could just send it to whoever instead of dealing with that portal stuff, but again bless the comittee since they also complied letters for me), and had to write 1. It was from a business professor, and that's apparently common practice in the business world, but when I started writing it that's when I realized it makes you be truthful. He added some to it and changed descriptors but he agreed with the content completely and I got a letter that fit AAMC format. And all this within a week.

Idk why that's a taboo thing to do. But if it is, please let me know as I may need to gear up for a reapp and am looking at any way to improve my application

 

[theKingLT]

But you DO have control over this! You do this by having good judgement in picking your writers, and especially by starting out with the question: "Professor Jones, do you know me well enough to write me a good LOR for my med school app?"

You can mitigate risk with good judgement. It's a stretch to say you really have control though. At least not like an applicant has over the rest of his/her application. See example below.

-coach who I've spent thousands of hours with personally
-walked-on to team (no scholarship), worked harder than anyone, discipline exceeding professional and Olympic level athletes, made tons of progress, and became one of the best in the country in my position, nationally recognized.
-huge contributor to team collaboration and mentorship of the new guys
-coach has recognized ALL of the above qualities in various speeches, talks, etc.
-verbally agreed to write a STRONG letter
-I gave the whole spiel on what to focus on., ignore stuff not relevant to our interactions and the sport. Focus on personal qualities, etc.
-last thing that I forgot to mention earlier: coach used to be a high school English teacher some 20+ years ago, so writing abilities should not be an issue

By all objective indications this should have been my strongest letter and I would be crazy to not include it, but the result was a very bland generic "endorsement of candidacy" that lists resume items not relevant to our relationship due to the writer's own laziness.

 

[puahate]

LORs is one reason why academia is unbearable.

 

[gyngyn]

LORs is one reason why academia is unbearable.

I have a long list of more cogent reasons!

 

[whorobbedthewoods]

I guess I'm a dying breed because the adcoms on here seem to suggest that they don't hold LORs in very high regard anyway, and that this will only become more true in the future. But I really believe that the relinquishing of control that comes w/ confidential LORs is not only a useful exercise, but an essential one. It's hard for type-A control freak neurotic premeds to accept, but it's an important part of life. There's a reason jobs ask for references. There's a reason my security clearance officer interviewed my friends and coworkers. There's a reason that in any number of imaginable scenarios, we seek third-party opinions--in confidence.

I was personally relieved that there would be something other than my own necessarily narrow-sighted, inescapably biased blabbering about myself to shed light on the type of person that I am, without my hovering and wringing my hands over it. Basically, it requires putting faith and trust in other highly qualified people, which necessitates building the types of relationships that would allow you to do so, which is, again, an essential life skill. Will it ALWAYS work out in EVERY situation, even if seems you've done everything right? Probably not, as examples given in this thread indicate. That's life. Luckily, you are typically allowed more than one LOR.

The reward outweighs the risk, IMHO.

 

[Isoval]

I recently had the opportunity to view 3 of my letters of recommendation (with permission) that were written for an independent scholarship I'm applying to. All 3 were from letter writers I used for med school apps and I suspect these letters didn't vary much from those upload to AMCAS. With that said the quality varied significantly. One from a professor and one from a volunteer coordinator were both fantastic, highlighting a multitude of personal qualities and referencing me as "the best they have". The third, from a sports coach, was very average, talking about my gpa, little specifics, repetitive in a generic way, and overall very lazily written. The thing is the third one was what I would have thought would be the strongest. I've spent thousands of hours with this coach, worked objectively harder than any other athletes on the team, made more progress, am a key part of the team success, team-player, national awards, etc. The coach loves me, it just doesn't show well in the letter. Anyways, one letter hasn't hindered anything and I've had a successful cycle, but it's got me thinking. Someone could easily be a great student and pick what seem like great letter writers but get 3/3 really crappy letters just from writers being lazy and generic--and that could really detriment their application. Should applicants be able to view their letters and select the best ones?

I'm still thinking no, but just curious about others' thoughts.

The health advising office at my undergrad would notify you if they received a letter that was of poor quality so that you might seek another writer in replacement.

However, they would NOT notify you if they received a letter that did not recommend you or was otherwise derogatory of your character.

I think this should be the gold standard. There’s a fine line between blatant yes and blatant no that needs to be straddled.

 

[ginsengreset]

This may be my own personal unpopular opinion, but just as how medical students can review their own MSPEs, I think applicants with committee letters should be able to view those committee letters.

 

[LizzyM]

Once again, I must recommend Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher. You'll never look at LORs the same way again.

I will say that one of the most memorable and charming letters I ever read was by a coach --who also had a BA in English from Harvard.

And to answer the original question, you do, by federal law, have the right to read the letters written by faculty and staff of your university. However, most people chose to waive that right the idea being that the writer will be more candid if the right to read the letter is waived. While you waive the right to see the letter, you may be offered the opportunity to see the letter and some writers will send you a copy as a courtesy. (Just as you don't have a legal right to enter your faculty member's home, but they can invite you in and that's okay.)

 

[965978]

I have a long list of more cogent reasons!

This is your chance to vent gyngyn!!!!

 

[965978]

Once again, I must recommend Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher. You'll never look at LORs the same way again.

I will say that one of the most memorable and charming letters I ever read was by a coach --who also had a BA in English from Harvard.

And to answer the original question, you do, by federal law, have the right to read the letters written by faculty and staff of your university. However, most people chose to waive that right the idea being that the writer will be more candid if the right to read the letter is waived. While you waive the right to see the letter, you may be offered the opportunity to see the letter and some writers will send you a copy as a courtesy. (Just as you don't have a legal right to enter your faculty member's home, but they can invite you in and that's okay.)

What about writing your own LOR? Is that essentially giving your faculty member a piggyback ride through their own front door? 😉

 

[stubblesmcgee]

I was applying for summer research opportunities a few months back and I went to my old PI for another letter of recommendation (he'd given me one of my most important letters when applying to med school, having worked for him for a number of years after school), and he just... emailed me his letter to print out lmao. It felt awkward to read knowing most of it was probably similar to what he'd written last year. English is his second language so the letter wasn't a piece of art, but it was honest and more than a little heartwarming, spelling/grammar mistakes and all. The fact that it was markedly different from my own writing style was a bonus.

I think there's something very important about waiving your right to see your letters. Maybe some of the people in this thread are right that they'll be progressively less important as time goes on, but I guess I think the twin acts of putting your trust in other people and being comfortable with not controlling and sanitizing every aspect of your application is still an important exercise.

 

[965978]

I came across this very interesting article from a PD about LORs in the residency process. I think the adcoms here (@gyngyn @LizzyM @DrFortiusNatando @Goro ) would like this:

Viewpoint From a Program Director They Can't All Walk on Water

The good news is that there are many excellent applicants. The bad news is that all applicants look alike on paper, and it is difficult to discern who is a good fit for your program.There are many reasons for this difficulty. Some medical schools do not give grades for preclinical years, and the...

www.jgme.org

If the link doesn't work then it's They Can't All Walk on Water by Liana Puscas (Journal of Graduate Medical Education)

 

[PS2summerdays]

Yes but after a several month or 1-year buffer period.