Should you give your letter of intent for residency to the profs you choose to write your rec letter

[Slippers]

What if one of the people you want to write you a rec letter works at one of the programs you are applying to (and could potentially be involved in the selection of candidates there)?

And, my letter of intent won't be 100% complete when/if I give it to my potential recommendation letter writers because the first paragraph is usually about how you talked to people at midyear and I'd like to ask for references before then. I'm also planning to personalize the letter for each program by adding 1-2 sentences to each letter describing the reasons why I like each particular program and would want to do a residency there. So what I would end up giving the letter writer is my letter of intent without the first introductory paragraph and the 1-2 sentences of personalized information specific to the program.

So basically, my question is: would it hurt my chances of getting into a residency if one of my recommendation letter writers sees a "not 100% complete form" of my letter of intent before midyear? I wouldn't want them to get the final letter and think, "oh, this is just what I read before but without the extra 2 personalized sentences and the intro paragraph."

But I feel like it would help to give them my letter of intent to help them understand my reasons for choosing a residency and why I feel so strongly about my future plans.

Thoughts/advice greatly appreciated!

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[lord999]

It really depends on the Prof. I PREFER to have it, so I can riff off it in mine. I don't write form letters unless it's civil service, in which case, I have a letter that specifically mentions every single competency required for the 0660 series to pass through the crap OPM/USAJobs Natural Language Processor for the KSA competencies check (committees know this too on the VA side). We understand that you kind of use a form letter yourself to write, so don't worry about it with reasonable profs.

By the way, there is a courtesy involved where you approach the recommendation prof quietly (either through email or personally depending on the professor's preferences) requesting them to write the letter and giving them the opportunity to say no. There are some people that consider this a duty, but I don't, I consider this a request that if the student was not on good terms with me that I have leave to decline. However, I am honest about saying that I will write a good or a bad one as well.

(Academicians, PM me if you don't know what I am talking about when writing a letter for a VA or IHS residency to get my form letter and the competency standards. It really helps the candidate as the OPM filter kicks out applications that don't fulfill those so-called competencies from LoRs.)

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-ove...-schedule-positions/standards/0600/gs0660.pdf