Specificity of Recommendation Letters

[SungSangSing]

Hello SDN,

I am new to this forum, and I need your help! I am a third-year pre-health student, and I have not decided which field I want to pursue. I've been considering medicine, dentistry, physical therapy, and nursing. I've shadowed all and have developed preferences in some fields over others.

For personal reasons, I will apply to professional schools years after I graduate from my university. However, since I am already taking my pre-reqs, I will ask for letters of recommendations now. The problem is that because I have not decided which field to pursue, I do not know how to ask professors to write the letter. In other words, I do not know if I should ask professors to make letters out to medical schools, dental schools, nursing schools, etc.

I am considering asking professors to write letters recommending me to "professional school." Is this recommended? Please indicate if you are a pre-health student, accepted student, adcom, etc.!

For your information, our school sends a committee letter which summarizes the letters of recommendations, but the school also sends copies of the individual letters students obtain from their professors.

Thank you in advance!

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[ponyo]

Accepted pre-med, undergrad class of 2012. This is what I did with some of my LoRs: I told the prof that I didn't know which option I would pursue, but gave them the most likely one. I asked them to send it to my dean's office, which keeps these on file (any other service really, as long as you don't have to keep it yourself which would mess with confidentiality). Once I decided where I would apply I asked the letter to be sent back to them and for them to re-write the first sentence so that it made sense.

For most of my profs I was always pre-med so it was fine. But for one of them I had her write a law school rec, and it was easy for her to change it since it didn't require any additional thought.

 

[SungSangSing]

Accepted pre-med, undergrad class of 2012. This is what I did with some of my LoRs: I told the prof that I didn't know which option I would pursue, but gave them the most likely one. I asked them to send it to my dean's office, which keeps these on file (any other service really, as long as you don't have to keep it yourself which would mess with confidentiality). Once I decided where I would apply I asked the letter to be sent back to them and for them to re-write the first sentence so that it made sense.

For most of my profs I was always pre-med so it was fine. But for one of them I had her write a law school rec, and it was easy for her to change it since it didn't require any additional thought.

Ahhhh...great idea. I'll have to ask the pre-med office at my school if I can give them a letter and ask for it to be changed if necessary in the future. Thank you!

 

[BurberryDoc]

I graduated college 4 years ago, was accepted this year to medical school. I just kept in touch with my professors a few times a year, kept them updated on my exploits in research and education, and then when I was ready to apply, I asked the appropriate professors if they would write recommendation letters.