UCLA Letter of Reference Service

[Long_John]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hey UCLA students i really need some advice here.
The Career Center Letter of Reference Service finally got all of my letters of rec. I just talked to one of the people there and they told me that it takes 15 business days just to process my request to mail my letters plus another 3 shipping days for my letters to actually get to any of my schools ...and I could be looking at at least 3 weeks before any school even gets my letters!! For those of you who have recently made requests to have letters sent, what has been your processing time? Should I just suck it up and do priority at least to my top choice schools.

 

[uclabruin2003]

uh i was being cheap and i did low priority mail. it really does take that long!!! they arent ****ting you.

i had a request on 8/12 and its still not out...they typically take 12-15 business days (figure 3-4 weeks total). even the priority ones dont go out on the same day. they take the maximum time of 3 days + 1 day shipping.

i should have done priority for all. but its so much cheaper this way....sigh. dumb ucla.

 

[Long_John]

uh i was being cheap and i did low priority mail. it really does take that long!!! they arent ****ting you.

i had a request on 8/12 and its still not out...they typically take 12-15 business days (figure 3-4 weeks total). even the priority ones dont go out on the same day. they take the maximum time of 3 days + 1 day shipping.

i should have done priority for all. but its so much cheaper this way....sigh. dumb ucla.

those dumb bureacrats at the career center. they don't care as much about students as they do about profiting from their stupid LOR service. the only reason that all the requests aren't as fast as priority is so they can run there damn priority service and make all that money off of it

 

[UCLAstudent]

I think the longest I have had to wait before my letters were shipped was 13 days ... it usually takes 8-9 days. They are slow, but not as slow as they claim! 🙂

 

[Long_John]

I think the longest I have had to wait before my letters were shipped was 13 days ... it usually takes 8-9 days. They are slow, but not as slow as they claim! 🙂

you didnt ship all of your letters at the same time?

 

[UCLAstudent]

you didnt ship all of your letters at the same time?

No, since different schools have different requirements, and since I got my secondaries at different times. I didn't want to have to wait until I got all of my secondaries before I sent the letters. I sent them as I got each secondary (but tried to group schools together to save money).

 

[Long_John]

here's what i am thinking of doing. priority for at least my top 5 schools. regular for the rest. place order at the same time though. so maybe while they are processing my priority they might process my regular at the same time. its a far reach but i'm sending the same letters to all the schools so its possible

 

[UCLAstudent]

here's what i am thinking of doing. priority for at least my top 5 schools. regular for the rest. place order at the same time though. so maybe while they are processing my priority they might process my regular at the same time. its a far reach but i'm sending the same letters to all the schools so its possible

That sounds like a good idea. I did do priority for Northwestern (such a quick deadline to receive LOR) and Creighton (I thought I had sent the letters a long time ago 😳 ).

 

[LNpisces]

here's what i am thinking of doing. priority for at least my top 5 schools. regular for the rest. place order at the same time though. so maybe while they are processing my priority they might process my regular at the same time. its a far reach but i'm sending the same letters to all the schools so its possible

yeah i would definitely priority at least some of them. they are hella sloooooow. i requested on 7/24/2004 and my letters were sent out 8/5/2004. so i guess it takes them about a week and a half.

 

[nomo15]

here's what i am thinking of doing. priority for at least my top 5 schools. regular for the rest. place order at the same time though. so maybe while they are processing my priority they might process my regular at the same time. its a far reach but i'm sending the same letters to all the schools so its possible

sorry, that's not too likely...i did like three schools priority and 16 schools basic on 8/3. The priority ones were out by 8/5, but the basic mail ones were sent on 8/17 - so it really will take that long! my advice is, if you can, do priority for those five top choices and any schools you want to show a lot of interest in. It will get expensive like that though, so you should ask yourself for each school if it's worth an extra 12-16 bucks for that particular school

 

[mdsh00]

Hey UCLA students i really need some advice here.
The Career Center Letter of Reference Service finally got all of my letters of rec. I just talked to one of the people there and they told me that it takes 15 business days just to process my request to mail my letters plus another 3 shipping days for my letters to actually get to any of my schools ...and I could be looking at at least 3 weeks before any school even gets my letters!! For those of you who have recently made requests to have letters sent, what has been your processing time? Should I just suck it up and do priority at least to my top choice schools.

I've been sending all of mine by priority. Ive seen that it takes 2 days for it to REACH the school after I've made the request. To me, the extra money was worth it.

 

[bridge01]

on a related side note: did anyone else notice that sometimes the address the career center had on file through their coding sheet was different that what the school gave on their website or emails? i think all my stuff got to the schools eventually. but just a heads up in case you're doing mass send outs.

 

[derf]

on a related side note: did anyone else notice that sometimes the address the career center had on file through their coding sheet was different that what the school gave on their website or emails? i think all my stuff got to the schools eventually. but just a heads up in case you're doing mass send outs.

yeah, don't use their darn codes...they're outdated.

 

[EvoDevo]

www.interfolio.com

👍

 

[derf]

No, since different schools have different requirements, and since I got my secondaries at different times. I didn't want to have to wait until I got all of my secondaries before I sent the letters. I sent them as I got each secondary (but tried to group schools together to save money).

did you use any special handling (extra fees) since some schools require your amcas ID to accompany the letters?

 

[UCLAstudent]

did you use any special handling (extra fees) since some schools require your amcas ID to accompany the letters?

I only did that for like two schools (NYMC and NYU). It hasn't been a problem. Yet. 😉

 

[derf]

I only did that for like two schools (NYMC and NYU). It hasn't been a problem. Yet. 😉

thanks 🙂

 

[uclabruin2003]

freak. ive been using the codes...some of the addresses looked right to me! darn now i have to go back and check.

for some reason or another ALL of my requests have been processed in 12-14 days. I dont think any of my requests made it in 9 days. I would also think that since we all are submitting now...it would be really busy there and therefore delays are gonna be imminent.

although some schools did request my aamc ID number...well i didnt include it by using special handling? do you think i will get burned at the stake? my letters do include my SSN at least.

 

[UCLAstudent]

freak. ive been using the codes...some of the addresses looked right to me! darn now i have to go back and check.

for some reason or another ALL of my requests have been processed in 12-14 days. I dont think any of my requests made it in 9 days. I would also think that since we all are submitting now...it would be really busy there and therefore delays are gonna be imminent.

although some schools did request my aamc ID number...well i didnt include it by using special handling? do you think i will get burned at the stake? my letters do include my SSN at least.

Don't worry, I have been using the codes. The letters will get to the schools, eventually. The only school I didn't use a code for was Stanford because the address was blatantly wrong.

And don't worry about your AMCAS number. I only put it on letters for two schools. I stopped after that. The "special handling" fee is a ripoff.

 

[uclabruin2003]

Don't worry, I have been using the codes. The letters will get to the schools, eventually. The only school I didn't use a code for was Stanford because the address was blatantly wrong.

And don't worry about your AMCAS number. I only put it on letters for two schools. I stopped after that. The "special handling" fee is a ripoff.

nice to know there are fellow bruins on this board....and are griping about the same things....i do however miss our campus though.... 🙁

 

[UCLAstudent]

nice to know there are fellow bruins on this board....and are griping about the same things....i do however miss our campus though.... 🙁

Our campus is so beautiful! I would be so blessed to stay four more years for medical school.

 

[Long_John]

nice to know there are fellow bruins on this board....and are griping about the same things....i do however miss our campus though.... 🙁

yea it is nice to know there are fellow bruins on this board. i have some more gripes too
why the hell wasn't there a premed advisor on campus. that was freakin ridiculous especially with all of the premeds we had. i was told to go to my dept counselor instead, but i'm a math major and the freaking math counselor didn't know **** about premed stuff. I then went to the letters of science counselor and all they could do was refer me to different depts to find more information. Way too much useless bureacracy!! In the end, I was all on my own to find out about volunteer activities, research, and other stuff.