Section 12

Health Professions School Application Process: Requesting Letters of Evaluation*

Howard Duncan

All health professions schools require letters of evaluation. Consider the following points while you are requesting these letters.

  • You are encouraged to get strong letters of evaluation from faculty in science (usually two) and non-science classes where you performed well.
  • Letters are also helpful from work supervisors, health professionals, summer academic program directors and faculty, summer research mentors, institutional research faculty, teaching assistants, and people whom know you from many perspectives (e.g., student government or organizations, music, sports, church, hobbies).
  • It is your responsibility to find out if your particular institution has an established protocol for requesting letters of evaluation.
  • Faculty writing letters of evaluation for you should be:
    1. knowledgeable and experienced in assessing pre-medical students
    2. familiar with medical school education
    3. familiar with the qualities that admissions committees are seeking
    4. able to compare you with your peers
    5. well acquainted with you
  • Be courteous. Remember, you are making a request. A professor does not have to write a letter of evaluation for you.
  • Your initial request for a letter of evaluation should include these basic questions:
    1. Would you be willing to write a letter of evaluation for me?
    2. Do you feel it can be a positive letter? If you sense any reserve or hesitancy on the part of the evaluator, you may want to discuss the matter with the individual. You may decide not to continue with this request and ask someone else.
    3. May I make an appointment to talk to you and review my qualifications?
    4. I would like for you to mention ___________ (fill in the blank) in the letter you write for me. Do you feel you could do that?
  • Provide a brief résumé and autobiography to the evaluator to enhance the content of your letter or recommendation. Both of these should be typed. You may also want to meet with him or her so that you can elaborate or clarify points made in your résumé and autobiography. While the résumé outlines academic and work history and honors, the autobiography emphasizes personal goals, background and history, avocations, and interests.
  • You should request letters at least two to three months in advance of committee, advising, or school deadlines for submission.
  • You must follow up to verify that letters were sent.
  • Usually an institution will only give an address for where the letter should be sent. In this case you may pre-type an envelope with the address and offer to pay the postage for the evaluator. Some institutions require that letters of evaluation be on the evaluator's departmental letterhead, while others may provide a questionnaire and/or self-addressed envelope.
  • Every section of an evaluation form that you must fill out must be typed. Carefully examine the form to see whether there is a deadline date and if it requires your signature. A decision may have to be made whether to waive your right to review an evaluation letter. Most students decide to sign the waiver, but it is up to you. If you provide a stamped addressed envelope to the recommender, it must be typed.

*Material for this section is based on the book by Jane Diehl Crawford, The Premedical Planning Guide, Baltimore, MD: Williams & Wilkins, 1994.

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