What happens to internship if..

[edieb]

your letters of recommendation are only going to be average or a little worse than average? Will that keep you from getting an internship? What factors go into the internship-student selection process?

My professor keeps on giving me fairly bad yearly reviews (1 being horrible, 5 being great, I get an average of around 2.8 or so). However, he keeps me around. I am now in my third year and will be finishing up by the end of year four.

I guess it boils down to this - if your letters are mediocre or a bit less than mediocre, what happens to you? This is regarding clinical

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[lazure]

Instead of worrying about getting into internship, you should be worrying about what you can do to improve your evaluation.... gotta be blunt with yourself...

 

[Janusdog]

I don't think I would apply to internship with letters that were 'less than average'. If you think about it, an applicant would typically pick people who can say the nicest things about you. They're quite the red flag when they're not amazing, because it makes the reader wonder: "Is this the best this guy could get?"

I read some article that said that a huge amount of letter writers rank nearly all the people they write letters for in the top 10%, and that letters were in danger of losing credibility accordingly. If the standard letter says that the applicant is in the top 10%, they might not take your application seriously. Is there anyone else who can write you one?