Reference letter scoring?

[aloeplant]

Hey everyone! I understand that reference letters are weighed fairly heavily at uoft so I want to choose the best referees possible as well as give them some talking points to guide their writing should they need them. I'm wondering how exactly are reference letters scored? Does a reviewer go through a letter with a rubric of the CANMEDs roles side by side and score you based on how many points are covered? For example, the scholar role's key concepts description is very clinical/medical centric (ethics, patient safety, understanding of healthcare info), so if my research referee is in a totally different field (math) will his letter be scored low despite being very positive? What differentiates a good reference letter from an excellent reference letter?  

 

Thanks so much for your help!

[robclem21]

All 3 letters are scored collectively across the four clusters. They are not scored individually. Therefore, if one letter is stronger towards scholar, and another is strong towards advocacy you will be scored accordingly for those two clusters, even if the former doesn't mention advocacy and the latter doesn't mention scholarly work. If none of them mention the other two clusters, you would score poorly on those. The goal is to cover the 4 clusters between the 3 letters. The more an individual letter is able to speak to, the better obviously, because repetition helps us make a more accurate assessment. Now if a volunteer coordinator is speaking to your scholarly work, that would seem kinda weird to me since they don't know you in that capacity.

What differentiates a good letter from an excellent letter is solid examples regarding the qualities. If the letter just says, W is a good leader. Then that would score poorly. If it says W is a good leader because they did X, Y, Z to demonstrate this, then that would be a great letter. Additionally, the length of time and capacity they have known you adds to the strength of the letter and makes it carry more weight.