Your recommendation letter should address your personal characteristics and qualities, and it should provide examples and anecdotes of times that you demonstrated said qualities. If they really don’t seem to plan on contributing to the draft at all, you may be better off asking someone else who’s more passionate about your potential.Īs you get to writing, draw on some of the same tools you used to sculpt a strong medical school personal statement. Even if you’re playing a major role in writing your letter, your recommender should still be involved, both for ethical reasons and because the entire point of a recommendation is to get someone more experienced than you to say you’re a good candidate for a medical career. Lastly, confirm that no matter what you do, your recommender will go through your initial draft or letter. You can then ensure that you cover that material in either bullet points, an outline, or a prose draft. It may be because they’re simply pressed for time, but it may also be because there are things about you-characteristics or accomplishments-that they feel they don’t know. Then politely try to establish why your recommender wants you to be involved in the drafting of the letter. What makes the most sense? A full draft? An outline? Bullet points? Something else?” I’d just like to write down what exactly you need from me to make this letter happen. If asking during an in-person conversation, try something like: “Thanks so much, Professor Torres. I’m grateful to have your support as I apply to medical school. Please let me know if that works, and thank you so much again. If you have no preference, I can write up a draft leaving space for you to add some information that only you could articulate about me. What would be easiest for you to work with? Do you prefer a full draft, an outline or list of bullet points, or something else? I’m happy to get you whatever materials you need to make the recommendation strong. Thank you so much for agreeing to work on my letter. Do they really need you to write the whole letter from scratch? Could you simply offer them an outline or a list of bullet points to cover? Here’s one way to ask these questions via email: Preparing to write your own medical school recommendation letterīegin by establishing what your recommender wants, and, if possible, why they want it. Here’s how to ensure that this self-written letter maximizes your chances of getting into medical school. By maintaining an open conversation, the result may be better than what would have come had your recommender been sitting alone in a room, scratching their head about what to say about you. They said yes, which means they’re on board!Īpproach this situation as a chance to prepare your recommender to write the ideal rec letter. What can you say about yourself that won’t sound pompous, braggy, or awkward? Won’t it be obvious that you’ve written it, instead of a recommender? How can you handle this with respect for your recommender’s time and for the application process, while also avoiding short-changing yourself?įirst of all, know that writing your own letter of recommendation is an acceptable, even common practice, and that it doesn’t mean your recommender is too busy to help you get into medical school or uninterested in championing you. This isn’t an uncommon situation, though it can make many applicants uncomfortable or scared. What do you do? How do you write a medical school letter of recommendation for yourself? You reach out to the people who can speak best to your strengths, picking the right mix of science and non-science mentors or bosses, and drawing on multiple phases of your life experience, from university to professional environments, classrooms to gap year.īut now one of your writers tells you they’re extremely busy and need you to write your own letter of recommendation. Understandably, there’s one application task that you might be excited to leave to someone else: the writing of your recommendations. You’ve got to get great grades, do well on the MCAT, earn enough clinical hours, and write a stellar set of personal statements and secondary essays. Applying to medical school can seem like a solitary effort.
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