Angelia Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 Hey, I just have a quick question. I am kinda confused about the whole LORs. Do we submit our primary and then 'if' we get a secondary we submit our LORs along with the secondary??? Or do we just send the LORs before the secondary??? Thanks! Sorry, I'm new to the whole applying to the states! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UserName Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 I'm not sure about the answer myself.. and i have a related question.. is our primary complete only when AMCAS receives our LORs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rach Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 LORs are not part of your primary application. AMCAS will verify your primary without LORs, you send those to the schools around the time of your secondaries. Some schools do not want your LORs until they specifically ask for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HD555 Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 LORs are not part of your primary application. AMCAS will verify your primary without LORs, you send those to the schools around the time of your secondaries. Some schools do not want your LORs until they specifically ask for them. You sure that's the case this year with majority of the schools using AMCAS as the reference letter service instead of sending letters to individual schools? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rach Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 You sure that's the case this year with majority of the schools using AMCAS as the reference letter service instead of sending letters to individual schools? Hmm well actually I don't know for sure that using the AMCAS letter service doesn't change things. But since some schools still don't do it, and some schools already did it last year with no change in policy for them, I would say it's a safe bet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neurogirl Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 I wrote to AMCAS a few days ago about this, this is what they said Dear Applicant, Thank you for contacting AMCAS. Applicants can add letter entries after submitting their application. In addition, letters can be received by AMCAS in support of an application even after the application has been processed and made available to the medical schools. Not receiving letters will NOT delay the applicant's processing time with AMCAS, but applicants are advised to note all letters deadlines that the medical schools will enforce. I have included some additional information about the AMCAS Letters program below for you. AMCAS accepts Letters of Evaluation/Recommendation for a number of medical schools, please visit http://www.aamc.org/students/amcas/faq/amcasletters.htm for a complete list of participating schools. This service enables medical schools to receive all letters electronically via AMCAS, and enables your authors to send all letters to be considered by schools participating in this service to AMCAS rather than each school. There are several mediums in which a letter writer can send your letter to AMCAS. AMCAS will receive letters from users of VirtualEvals, Interfolio, and via the mail. In addition, letter writers who currently mail letters can opt to upload letters directly to AMCAS through the AMCAS Letter Writer Application. If you are applying to a participating school your letters must be sent through AMCAS for that school. Contact the medical school admission committees directly for information regarding specific requirements and deadlines. So in short, LORs don't affect your primary application processing, as you can still add letters later on. Hope this helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
token Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 The AMCAS LOR service is still separate from the verification process. They are still considered part of the secondary. You can log into your application after its been verified to deal with the LOR stuff. ed: Or what neurogirl said Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamesfan Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 definitely not part of the primary but don't forget that references take time to reach the US. i had a friend who probably lost out on 3-4 interviews because of a delayed reference just a heads up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angelia Posted May 14, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2009 Another question: how do I know when AMCAS has recieved my transcripts??? Does something show up on my login application??? Thx! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Classic Posted May 14, 2009 Report Share Posted May 14, 2009 Wow - there are many more schools participating this year! Interfolio will be sad to lose all that business! You can log on to AMCAS to check your transcript status and I think they send you an email as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HD555 Posted May 14, 2009 Report Share Posted May 14, 2009 Wow - there are many more schools participating this year! Interfolio will be sad to lose all that business! You can log on to AMCAS to check your transcript status and I think they send you an email as well. I think most people will still use interfolio this year, since not ALL the schools are participating. It's still more convenient to just tell your referees to send it to interfolio then send all your letters out to AMCAS/schools from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
token Posted May 14, 2009 Report Share Posted May 14, 2009 Yeah guys I would suggest signing up for interfolio anyway. The AMCAS letter service is only in its second year and there are a lot of kinks still to be worked out. At least if you use interfolio they have a fairly streamlined process for receiving letters, and then uploading them to AMCAS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quester Posted May 22, 2009 Report Share Posted May 22, 2009 If you get rejected this year, can you re-send those reference letters without the referee's permission next cycle? Or are the letters already uploaded so that you don't have to get new reference letters? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Violet Posted May 22, 2009 Report Share Posted May 22, 2009 So two of my letters have reached Interfolio, and I'm just waiting on one - when should I be sending them to schools? I haven't sent in my primary yet, but hopefully will in early June. Once I receive secondaries, do I send out the LORs to each school or first to AMCAS (I'm assuming the latter is only if I'm using their letter sending service?). Thanks for the help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quester Posted May 22, 2009 Report Share Posted May 22, 2009 I mean, are the letters sent by interfolio in previous cycle get resent again to the new schools I may be applying in next cycle? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tan008 Posted May 22, 2009 Report Share Posted May 22, 2009 So two of my letters have reached Interfolio, and I'm just waiting on one - when should I be sending them to schools? I haven't sent in my primary yet, but hopefully will in early June. Once I receive secondaries, do I send out the LORs to each school or first to AMCAS (I'm assuming the latter is only if I'm using their letter sending service?). Thanks for the help! This was changed last year. Now some schools want your letters sent through AMCAS (so you send the letters to AMCAS first and they get sent to the schools), while other schools want you to send the letters directly to them along with your secondary application. All this information is on the AMCAS application, which has a list of all the schools participating in this letter exchange and how many letters you have to send. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tan008 Posted May 22, 2009 Report Share Posted May 22, 2009 I mean, are the letters sent by interfolio in previous cycle get resent again to the new schools I may be applying in next cycle? The letter can be the same but the date on the letter has to be current I believe. You might have to contact your referees again next year to see if they can reupload those letters to Interfolio. If there are no dates on your letters (all of mine had the date and year of when they were written) then you can just send the same ones again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rach Posted May 22, 2009 Report Share Posted May 22, 2009 The letter can be the same but the date on the letter has to be current I believe. You might have to contact your referees again next year to see if they can reupload those letters to Interfolio. If there are no dates on your letters (all of mine had the date and year of when they were written) then you can just send the same ones again. I've heard of lots of people using letters with dates that were 1-2 years old and apparently it was fine. It's probably ideal to have current dates, but if it's a big hassle I think old dates are ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tan008 Posted May 22, 2009 Report Share Posted May 22, 2009 I've heard of lots of people using letters with dates that were 1-2 years old and apparently it was fine. It's probably ideal to have current dates, but if it's a big hassle I think old dates are ok. In that case... I said current date because I seem to recall reading something like that as a requirenment for one of the schools. I believe it was CMS and it said that if you had applied in the past you had to have "current" LORs to send again. I might have dreamt that though I seem to be doing that a lot lately Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quester Posted May 22, 2009 Report Share Posted May 22, 2009 The old date thing might be for a situation like this: A prof taught you in 2006. you went to his hours and he got to know you better. You ask him to write it in 2006 because if you were to wait till 2008 when you applied, he might not remember anything about you. So you pick it up early while you are fresh in his head. That sorta thing is that it was intended for, but it ultimately doesn't matter. So the situation you described is 'not ideal' but it CAN be done, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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