Undergrad Letters of Recommendations

[Snickerdoodle1996]

Hi everyone,

I am a second year student so I will be applying to med school next year. Is it too early now to start asking for letters of recommendation? There is one professor that I feel comfortable asking now and dont want to lose touch with .

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[lpp06]

Most people do not apply until the summer before their final year of undergrad - are you on a 3 year track? If so, go ahead and ask for it now. If not, I'd wait to get it written within the year of your graduation.

 

[aldol16]

Ask them so that they have 3 months of time to write it. Any earlier and it's really early and so they might just forget about it, any later and you might miss early primary submission. I wouldn't be concerned about them forgetting about you if you feel right now that they can write you a strong letter. If you think that they might forget about you in a few months, then perhaps you might reconsider whether they can write you a strong letter.

 

[purplefrog13]

You could talk to them and put the idea in their head, or see if they are willing to do so.

 

[GCS-15]

"Prof xyz, I'm applying to medical school in __year and was wondering if you could write a strong letter of recommendation for me?" If prof says yes - ask him if he's willing to do it later, or wants to do it now. If later: keep in touch via email, visit regularly, then the year of the app cycle, ask him to write it. If prof needs to write it now: give a mini personal statement/ resume. Prof writes it and goes to interfolio. The year of the app cycle, send email to prof saying to update the date of the letter.


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[partypantss]

No reason to wait longer than you have to to ask for letters. If they write it way before you apply, have them send it to interfolio. You may want to just have all of them send it to Interfolio either way. Interfolio is awesome. It won't hurt to start gathering up good letters now. Better to have plenty to choose from than not enough.

 

[sullen-burger]

"Prof xyz, I'm applying to medical school in __year and was wondering if you could write a strong letter of recommendation for me?" If prof says yes - ask him if he's willing to do it later, or wants to do it now. If later: keep in touch via email, visit regularly, then the year of the app cycle, ask him to write it. If prof needs to write it now: give a mini personal statement/ resume. Prof writes it and goes to interfolio. The year of the app cycle, send email to prof saying to update the date of the letter.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile

This part is so key, so I just bolded it for emphasis. If you can't get a really good letter from this person, then don't get one at all. Make sure you have a solid relationship with them.

Because I've had professors straight up tell me, when they get annoyed by some random people that they never see outside of class, heckling them for LORs, that they'll just write them a sub-par or even actively damaging letter. One prof I TA'd for said to me once about someone in my class:

"If this kid asks me for a letter, asking that I write a good one, I'll just be honest and say I can't do that."

I agree with everyone else about the timeline for when to ask.