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Students: Steps to Requesting a Letter of Recommendation
Prepare |
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Begin getting to know your professors early, go ahead and get started your first year. The better they know you, the better your letters of recommendation will be. |
How do you get to know your faculty? Consider these strategies:
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Get an idea of the type of letters you will need for your profession and individual schools of interest and plan accordingly. Check out the Application Process page for your career of choice under Careers in Health Professions to find out more. |
Ask Your Recommender |
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Make an appointment with your potential recommenders to discuss your intended goals. Request if your professor is willing to provide a positive letter of recommendation. |
Make sure to provide your recommender with enough context to write a good letter. Prepare copies of the following documents for them:
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Don't forget to provide instructions for how your recommenders should send their letter to the appropriate application tool (Interfolio or application service). |
Send a thank you note. Keep your recommended updated about your acceptances! |
Submission of Letters |
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The process to submit letters of recommendation differs among the health professions, and sometimes from school to school. See the Application Process page for your Health Professional Career of choice for more information. |
For medical and dental applications, submission of letters through Interfolio is suggested. Interfolio is an online portfolio which can be used to store letters from recommenders. The advantage of this system is that it allows letters to be written as soon as possible (immediately after your class with a recommender ends, for example), and then stored until the letter is needed. |
Please note: Some health professional programs request an advisor or pre-health committee letter if your institution offers one. UVA does not have such a committee, thus individual faculty letters of recommendation serve in that capacity.
Faculty: Guidelines for Letter Writing
Thank you, in advance, for your important role in supporting UVA students and alumni who aspire to become healthcare professionals!
It can be difficult to write a quality letter of evaluation for students when given little guidance about how your evaluation is utilized in the application process. These guidelines intend to facilitate the writing process and provide information on how to highlight your knowledge of a student applicant.
Schools for the health professions do not expect any one letter writer to provide information about every characteristic of an applicant. Please note that use of these guidelines is optional and not intended to dictate your writing process.
Outside of these guidelines, please be reminded that your letters should be on official letterhead and feature your signature.
Letter Writing Tips |
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1. Provide an accurate assessment or evaluation of the applicant's suitability for health professional programs, rather than advocate for the applicant. 2. Briefly explain your relationship with the applicant:
3. Quality is more important than letter length. Focus on the applicant rather than details about the lab, course, assignment, job, or institution. 4. Only include information on grades, GPA, or standard admission test scores if you are providing context to help interpret them. Grades, GPA, and admission test scores are available within the application. 5. Focus on behaviors you have observed directly when describing applicants' suitability for their professional program of choice. Consider describing:
6. Admissions committees find comparison helpful. If you make comparisons, be sure to provide context. Include information about:
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Key Areas of Interest to Health Professional Schools |
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Unique contributions to the incoming class:
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Core, Entry-Level Competencies: Describe how the applicant has, or has not, demonstrated any of the following competences that are necessary for success in a health professional program:
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*Adapted from the AAMC Guidelines for Writing a Letter of Evaluation for a Medical School Applicant (pdf).