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Guidance Requesting Letter of Recommendation

When requesting a letter of recommendation, keep the following in mind:

• Complete your portion of the HPAC Letter of Recommendation Form and give it to your letter writer.
• Know that the individual letters of recommendation are sent along with the committee letter for medical school and dental school along with other programs that accept committee letters. While the individual letters are sent first to the HPAC committee, they ultimately get bundled with the committee letter and are sent together to the schools to which you are applying. Note - vet schools often differ and require the individual letters to be submitted directly from the writer to VMCAS. 
• Presumably, you have been engaging in the kinds of activities that help to generate positive letters (e.g., you have gotten to know your professors well and you have let your professors get to know you; you have conducted research and/or engaged in focused and/or in-depth extra/co-curricular activities, etc.).
• Discuss with your HPAC advisor how to go about identifying individuals whom you would like to write on your behalf (e.g., review the core competencies and try to identify letter writers who are best suited to speak to different types of competencies that you possess).
• Plan well in advance for seeking letters of recommendation for your files.
• Don’t automatically assume that someone will be able to write on their behalf.
• Have back-ups.
• Provide letter writers with all the pertinent information.

Writers of letters of recommendation often are very appreciative of detailed information that will help the letter writer compose the strongest and most detailed letter possible. We include with the form you complete and give to your letter writers the competencies many of these programs are looking for. It would be good to discuss those competencies with your letter writers so they address the ones they observed. No single letter writer will likely address them all. Your collection of letters should collectively address the complete set.

You might consider including a cover letter similar to the one below.

Sample Cover Letter

[Date]

[Recommender’s Name, Title, Address]

Dear                                         ,

Thank you for agreeing to write a letter of recommendation for                            school on my behalf.  I appreciate your willingness to take the time to help me in this important process.

To assist you, I have provided the following information:

• Resume
• Transcript
• Personal Statement
• List of the schools to which I am applying, including:
  • the person/committee to whom you should address the letter - For HPAC: Health Professions Advisory Committee
  • the address to where the letter should be sent (or information about web link) - For HPAC, see the form with e-mail and physical addresses.
  • any specific recommendation requirements/guidelines for that school
  • deadlines for the letter of recommendation
  • (any other information that is necessary to include)
• General guidelines for preparing letters of recommendation

Because you know me through . . . . . I believe that you are in a good position to speak to my skills regarding . .

[Here, you can remind the letter writer of all the ways in which you have interacted with that person, and provide as much detail as possible to help jog their memory with specific information that could be included in the letter. Include reminders about how that letter writer knows you, relevant dates, specific tasks/activities that you engaged in under that person’s supervision, what your responsibilities were, etc. For example:]

Because you got to know me well when I shadowed you at Massachusetts General Hospital for three weeks (from 1/8/17 – 1/26/17, 7am -3pm daily), I believe that you are in a good position to speak directly to my passion for a profession in the health field, my work ethic, and my interpersonal skills in interacting with patients. Having the opportunity to round with you each day, to practice my skills in patient interviewing, to assist the residents in preparing to present their cases, and to discuss with you current issues in health care, was invaluable to me. What is most memorable for me was watching you manage conversations with patients and family members when you had to share news about poor prognoses. While those conversations were certainly very difficult, I was able to learn from you how to approach these conversations with a combination of compassion, candor, and information about next steps.   

Because I took several classes with you during my undergraduate education (Research Methods and Advanced Research Methods), I believe that you are in a good position to speak directly to my scientific inquiry, quantitative reasoning, teamwork, and written communication competencies. In the Research Methods course (spring semester, 2016), you may recall that after I received a C+ on the first exam, I regularly attended your office hours for assistance; my perseverance and commitment paid off and I earned a B+ and A- on the next two exams in the course. With this stronger understanding of the quantitative methods, I was able to incorporate into my written final research proposal (on the effects of cannabinoids on working memory processing in mouse models) a sophisticated statistical plan for analyzing the data for the proposed experiments. You also commented in your feedback on my proposal that you found my writing to be clear, logically organized, and that I provided a compelling case for my hypotheses. In the Advanced Research Methods course the following semester, my lab group worked together to carry out this research study over the course of the semester. Although the collection of our data was delayed because of . . . . our team solved the problem by . . .  and our results indicated that . . . . We were very proud of this work because . . . .

Thank you, again, for your help and please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.

Sincerely,

Your Full Name