Letters of Recommendation

(Yes, It Can Feel Embarrassing to Ask.)

If you are like me, then you might feel slightly anxious and extremely embarrassed about sending an email to ask for a letter of recommendation. But I want to reassure you – everyone has to do it! If your professors cannot write you the letter of recommendation (or a strong one specifically), then they will let you know. Having strong relationships with your letter writers is essential to receiving great letters, and this may take time to cultivate. Go to office hours, try to set up one on one meetings with your professor, TA with the professor, or try to do an independent study or project. A strong letter of recommendation can really boost your application.

You can store letters of recommendation ahead of time using Interfolio. It’s a paid service that allows you to store letters and then you can use it to send letters to the AMCAS application. If you have your letter writers send the letters directly to AMCAS, you will have to wait for the application to open in May before they can upload the letter.

Link to AAMC Guidelines to send letter writers.

Here are the letters of recommendation that I ended up asking for:

• Science Professors (2)
  • This means any of your biology, biochemistry, chemistry, or physics professors. Sometimes people will ask professors for classes that they have good grades in if they don’t necessarily have a strong relationship with the professor. There are times when a professor will agree to write you a letter of recommendation but ask to set up a quick time to meet with you first. During this time, they will likely “interview” you to understand personal elements to add to your letter.

• Non-Science Professor (1 or 2)
  • For this letter, you can ask any professor other than your biology, biochemistry, chemistry, and physics professors. I would recommend asking a professor that you’ve connected with strongly like a humanities professor. One thing to keep in mind is that certain medical schools will ask for a letter within your major. If you are a science major, then that requirement might be met with your science professor letters of recommendation. I ended up asking for both a humanities professor to write me a letter and for a professor within my data science major to write me a letter as well.

• MD and/or DO Physician letter (1 or 2)
  • For MD schools, this letter should come from an MD. This can be someone that you have shadowed or worked with (but don’t combine letters; if you ask an MD for your research letter, don’t also ask them to be your physician letter). You can ask for this letter right after you finish shadowing so that it is most recent. If you're applying to DO schools, you should have a DO write you a letter of recommendation. I asked someone who served as a mentor to me throughout the process (not someone I actually shadowed).

• Work/ Extracurricular Supervisor (1)
  • This letter should come from someone who can speak to your professionalism and ability to conduct yourself in a workplace environment. This can be supervisor from an on-campus job, gap year job, or internship for example.

• Research PI (1)
  • This letter should come from the PI of the lab even if you didn’t directly work with them. You can talk to the research assistants that you worked with and ask if they would feel comfortable vouching for you with the PI in your email request.