Letters of Recommendation

Medical schools place great weight on the recommendations submitted in support of a student's candidacy for admission.

Types of Recommendations

Students should submit letters of recommendation from faculty and employers or volunteer supervisors, especially related to medicine and health care. Admissions committees are interested in letters only from people under whom you have studied or worked. Character references, letters from family physicians, and the like are not appropriate.

In addition to faculty and employer recommendations, the Premedical Committee provides individualized, institutional letters of support recommending students who are applying for studies at medical, dental, veterinary, and other allied health schools.  Students must meet a list of minimum requirements to be eligible for a committee letter.

Required Letters

To be complete, a student's file must contain a minimum of four recommendation letters. Optimally, a student's file will contain five to seven letters from which, at its discretion, the Premedical Committee will choose those most appropriate to attach to the Committee Letter.

Tracking Recommendations

Whenever the Premedical Office receives a student's letter, they will log it in, file it, and send  an email message to confirm its receipt. It is the student's responsibility to make sure all  letters are in on time, and  may need to remind referees, frequently and diplomatically, to send in recommendations.