Letter Collection Systems
Letter collection is school-specific so make sure to ask your pre-health office what system they use. Schools may do one of the following:
Committee letter: a composite letter written by your pre-health committee that incorporates all the letters you have gathered and sends it all together to AMCAS. Keep in mind you can collect additional letters outside of your committee letter and use either Interfolio or the AMCAS letter service to collect and assign them to schools. Your Committee letter counts as one letter and you can assign up to 10 letters to any school.
Letter packet: Your school collects your letters for you. There is no personal summative letter from the pre-health committee. However, they may provide a cover sheet that gives a basic overview of their pre health curriculum or program.
Hands off - you are on your own for collecting letters. See below for two options you can use.
Interfolio: This is a third-party paid service that links to AMCAS, AACOMAS and TMDSAS. Signing up is free to collect letters but then you have to use a paid subscription to send the letters to AMCAS. Can store letters for more than one year and can start collecting as early as you want. Can also send letters to any of the MD/DO application systems.
AMCAS letter service: Centralized depot for collecting letters of recommendation. Cannot use this until the May of the year you are applying, it also does not carry over to the following year if you reapply. Great if you are only applying to MD schools. AMCAS has a video explaining the letter collection system.
When to ask your professors for letters of recommendations:
Before the class starts: “I will be applying to medical school in the future and was hoping to get a letter of recommendation from this class. What are your expectations for writing a letter for a student?”
After the class: “I really enjoyed your class and was hoping you could write me a future letter of recommendation. Can we sit down after class and discuss this or talk about my goals?”
The ultimate deadline for letters should be early July when medical schools first receive your application, the ideal deadline is May-June to not delay the evaluation of your application. Give professors a minimum of 3-4 weeks to write your letters.
What to have for your sitdown with your letter writers: Resume, a draft of personal statement, AAMC letter writer’s guidelines.
