When to forgo your undergrad LOR committee?

[klp14]

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I posted this on the waitlisted and still waiting thread in Pre-Allo, but maybe you guys would have some more insight. Question for those of you who are a few years out of undergrad and your school has a letter-writing committee: at what point do you scrap the committee and get more recent LORs on your own? I graduated in 2001 and finished a masters since then, so it's been a while since I've even spoken to the profs who wrote my original letters. New LORs from my current PIs would be so much more representative of who I am now but will schools not like that?

 

[microgin]

I posted this on the waitlisted and still waiting thread in Pre-Allo, but maybe you guys would have some more insight. Question for those of you who are a few years out of undergrad and your school has a letter-writing committee: at what point do you scrap the committee and get more recent LORs on your own? I graduated in 2001 and finished a masters since then, so it's been a while since I've even spoken to the profs who wrote my original letters. New LORs from my current PIs would be so much more representative of who I am now but will schools not like that?

I graduated from undergrad back in 2000. Similarly to you, I also completed a Master's degree and have held several full-time research jobs since then. I applied to medical school for the first time this past year and did not use a committee letter. Instead, I got several of my undergrad profs, one of my graduate profs, and several of my research PIs to write individual letters, gave them pre-addressed envelopes, and had them mail the letters directly to the schools that I applied to. While the end result of this year's application cycle was two waitlists, I was complemented at several of my interviews for my LORs. I plan on doing the same for this coming year's application cycle.

I would say, if your undergrad school still has your committee letter, by all means send it. All schools you apply to will need to see some sort of letter from your undergrad years, and if you haven't kept up with your profs, that might be the easiest way to get a letter. However, by all means, get letters from individual graduate profs, research advisors, etc. to cover the years since graduation. If I were on an adcom and didn't see any LORs covering the four year span since a student's graduation, I'd be suspicious.

 

[Kubed]

I posted this on the waitlisted and still waiting thread in Pre-Allo, but maybe you guys would have some more insight. Question for those of you who are a few years out of undergrad and your school has a letter-writing committee: at what point do you scrap the committee and get more recent LORs on your own? I graduated in 2001 and finished a masters since then, so it's been a while since I've even spoken to the profs who wrote my original letters. New LORs from my current PIs would be so much more representative of who I am now but will schools not like that?

Go with LOR's from your current PI's. Show the med schools the new (and hopefully better) you.