More LOR stress ???

[Sinnman]

I'm still waiting on a few of my LORs and they are the ones for the specialty for which I'm applying. I have waived my right to see all of my letters but one of the letter writers insisted I have my own copy to read.

Do you think it's better to submit my application to the programs now with only 1 or 2 letters and add the others later or to just designate them all now (before they are written)? There isn't a way to 'undesignate' a letter is there? I guess it boils down to submit all now and hope it goes well or send 1 or 2 now and wait on the others knowing there is a possibility that I may discover that some letters are better than others.

Thoughts?

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[Sinnman]

BTW, I guess I'm a little gun-shy because two people I knew last years were told they were given "strong LORs" only to find out during an interview that the letters sounded good but the were photocopies of photocopies with stuff like "during the rotation, I found that 'insert name here' was a hard worker..." The letters were crooked and their names were in different font and size. They actually were laughing at them.

 

[sophiejane]

BTW, I guess I'm a little gun-shy because two people I knew last years were told they were given "strong LORs" only to find out during an interview that the letters sounded good but the were photocopies of photocopies with stuff like "during the rotation, I found that 'insert name here' was a hard worker..." The letters were crooked and their names were in different font and size. They actually were laughing at them.

This makes me so mad. It's as if these attendings have completely forgotten how important these letters are to us. They make us wait and wait and wait and ask them multiple times. Applications get held up. BS like the above occurs probably more regularly than we know...

It's really not that hard--if you don't have time to write a good letter and do it promptly, DON'T say you'll do it!!

I mean, these people are supposed to be our mentors. On our side. We are going to be One of Them one day. What the hell?

Sorry for the rant. This issue just makes me so mad. Same thing with evals. Why is it so freaking hard to write a complete and descriptive sentence--just one will do--knowing that these end up in our dean's letter. I can't tell you how many evals I got that simply said "excellent student." Uh, thanks, but could you elaborate...?

Sorry for the rant. It's just a huge pet peeve of mine.

 

[Sinnman]

Anybody?

 

[deleted113029]

Anybody?

Just submit your application and assign your letters to your programs. There IS a way to remove designated letters, BUT it must be done BEFORE/BETWEEN THE TIME they are uploaded by your school and downloaded by the program. On the ERAS site, it will say what letters WERE designated to programs before they were removed. As you said, you can always add the remaining letters to fulfill their requirements.

Do you have a competent administration? just curious.

 

[MD Dreams]

What if we removed the assignment of a letter that is not in yet, but the programs had previously downloaded everything else. Will they see that the assignment was once there and has now been removed or will they not know that it was ever there?

 

[deleted113029]

What if we removed the assignment of a letter that is not in yet, but the programs had previously downloaded everything else. Will they see that the assignment was once there and has now been removed or will they not know that it was ever there?

They will not know if it was removed. They only download lors that were assigned to them and actually downloaded them. From ERAS website:

Note:
Grayed out program names had this Letter of Recommendation assigned to them at one point after you had applied to the program. This means the letter may have been transmitted before you un-assigned it. However, this letter is currently not assigned to the program.

Blue program names have not yet been applied to, these programs will not receive this document until you apply. If you un-assign the Letter before you apply to the program, they will never receive it.

I hope this helps.

 

[flashgordon]

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