How to Get Strong Medical School Letters of Recommendation

Author: Michelle Finkel, MD

As a Harvard Assistant Residency Director, I bore witness to how weak – or even mediocre – LORs had the potential to bomb an otherwise competitive candidacy. Once you’ve followed directions and asked the right people, it’s time to influence the content of your letters by making the job of letter writing easy.

When pre-meds, residents, nurses, and physician colleagues asked me to write them LORs when I was Assistant Residency Director, the first thing I requested was that they send me background information to make my letter robust…and my job easier. Accordingly, I strongly recommend you create a residency or medical school application “LOR packet,” which can include the following:

1. A brief, well-written cover letter defining all of your important accomplishments
2. Your curriculum vitae (CV)
3. Your personal statement in its final form

4. Your transcripts.

With regard to the cover letter, keep it streamlined. No one will skip the beach or her two-year old’s birthday party to read your exhaustive biography, so you want to thank the writer and highlight your pre-professional achievements in one page. The point of the cover letter is to supplement a letter writer’s knowledge of your candidacy and offer flattering content for inclusion. A professor may know that you made the only A in an organic chemistry class, but her LOR will be more complete, and she will demonstrate a more intimate familiarity with you if she knows enough to write that you volunteer regularly at a homeless shelter.

With regard to the CV and personal statement, these make useful supplements to the LOR packet only if they are in professional and final form. Don’t include rough drafts, as poorly organized background information leaves your writer the impression that you are a disorganized person. Also, only include the transcript if it bolsters your candidacy, demonstrating academic achievement. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot if you have some bad grades or an incomplete you’d rather not showcase.

Bottom line: An applicant who offered me a list of her accomplishments in a tidy, accessible package was more likely to get a strong, comprehensive letter that was submitted promptly. She also distinguished herself from the majority of candidates who requested letters without demonstrating a comparably sophisticated understanding of the demands this process made on my time. If you can make a letter writer's job easier, your forethought is likely to pay dividends in the letter your receive and, consequently, your residency or medical school application as a whole. This is not a court of law, so the savvy applicant can take subtle advantage of her ability to "lead the witness."