All of my son’s secondary applications, except the ones from NJMS and Vandy, are in. Out of all his schools, only UCSF and Vandy do screening before sending out secondary applications. He got the UCSF secondary and Vandy hasn’t sent out any yet. NJMS is too busy dealing with their sizable ED application pool.
He submitted six secondary applications so far and is trying to power through the remaining. His school has just started sending out letter packets. If my first son’s experience is any indication, his letters might be in by the third week of August.
I was just coming to ask you parents with rock-star-stats kids if they had received the Vandy secondary. If your son hasn’t gotten one yet, @kal123, I’m pretty sure no one has.
My D is just waiting on secondaries from one state school and Vandy (IF she gets one-I’m pretty sure she won’t make the automatic first screen threshold). She has turned in all her other secondaries, but I’m sure she’s not applying to nearly as many schools as most of your kids are.
At some colleges, the health professions committee collects all of a student’s LORs and then writes an additional school LOR that evaluates the student within the context of other students at the school, summarizes the student’s achievements & shortcomings and often includes excerpts from the other LORs. The other LORs are then appended to the school’s LOR and the whole thing is sent out as one package.
The health committee recommendation packet/letter is accepted by med schools in lieu of required individual LORs.
Not all colleges offer a health professions committee letter and, even at colleges that do offer it, students sometimes choose not to go through the committee and just send individual LORs instead.
I will just add one thing to @WayOutWestMom’s excellent explanation of letter packets - most medical schools require a committee letter packet, if the applicant’s undergrad school offers one. Bypassing the committee is a very big red flag.
One more thought on committee letters - they add their own color on the application. For example, the committee at my kids’ school (JHU) offers 4 different letters (besides not offering one at all) with different levels of “enthusiasm” in their recommendation.
There are legitimate reasons to by pass the committee–including if a student is applying after a gap year (i.e. hasn’t been a student on campus in the past year) or if a student has had problematic interactions with the health professions advising office in the past (it happens) or if the committee’s process is chaotic/disorganized/late in sending out letters.
One last reason that students bypass the committee process is that they are an otherwise reasonable candidate for med school but have lower than typical stats for students applying from their college. (Think GPA 3.4/3.5, MCAT 504 type student or students who have academic blemishes like Cs in one or more key pre-req classes.) Sometimes these students–who are potentially viable applicants at DO schools or less competitive in-state MD schools–may get less than supportive endorsements from the HP committee simply because they aren’t stellar, sure-thing applicants. This is often just considered another part of the weeding process at competitive colleges, but it’s a practice that can hurt some students and stymie their med school application cycle.
According to at least SDN adcomm, bypassing the committee isn’t always an app killing red flag if the applicant looks good otherwise.
Adcomms prefer committee letters if one is available, but no medical school actually requires one.
I forgot to mention about Stanford secondary. They seem to be experiencing technical difficulties (Stanford?!) in sending out secondary invitation e-mails. If any of your kids are applying to Stanford, tell them to visit https://med.stanford.edu/aes/ and click on “New User Registration” link.
@WayOutWestMom, some (if not all) of my son’s schools “require” committee letter, if there is a committee. For example, here is what JHU SOM FAQ says about LORs:
Q: What types and how many letters of recommendation are required?
A: We require a Committee Letter or, if your school does not have one, three (3) individual letters:
Two (2) letters of recommendation from science faculty
One (1) letter from non-science faculty
I don’t think the committee shares with the applicant exactly what they write in the letters, but I asked my D about her experience, and here’s what she said:
During the meeting with the pre-med adviser, D was asked a ton of questions about everything she had mentioned in her personal statement, EC’s, etc. as well as just general questions about her life. The adviser was collecting as much information as possible and would then decide from that which parts would be included in the letter.
D was also given a self-evaluation in which she “graded” every aspect of her own application. The adviser told her that she had, in the adviser’s opinion, underestimated her EC’s and that they were stronger than she thought. That gave D some indication of how the committee would have evaluated her.
Finally, the adviser told D that she would probably do well in the process because she had chosen a list of schools for which she was competitive.
I’m not sure this exactly answers your question, but since your S goes to the same school, I would assume he would have had a similar experience.
Also, I remember D telling me way back in her freshman year that they had been encouraged to meet with the pre-med adviser early and often in order to form a relationship so that the adviser would have more positive things to write in the committee letter. Unfortunately, I don’t know how that worked out for the last two batches of applicants since they got a new adviser last year. But I do know they keep records of all visits made to advising.
Usually not because the process is confidential and the student waives their right to read the letter.
Some committees at some schools will tell a student if the student is going to receive an unfavorable letter in advance of the process as a way of discouraging the student from going forward with their application.
The usual categories are highly recommended, recommended, recommended with reservations, and not recommended. Letters in the latter two categories are pretty rare.
And kal–although the FAQs may say they want a committee letter if available, I can assure you most schools will accept a ordinary LORs in lieu of the committee packet. I know several students who bypassed their school’s committees and applied successfully (i.e. received interviews/acceptances) with individual LORs at schools that say they “require” committee letters. Including one of my kids.
BTW, the MSPE (Medical Student Professional Evaluation)–aka Dean’s Letter-- that med students use to apply to residency looks a lot like the health professions committee letter. The big difference is that the med student usually sits down with the Dean to review the letter’s contents at the beginning of MS4 before the student submits to ERAS.
My apologies to anxious parents. The above information on Vandy is wrong. I don’t mean to add to what is already a nerve wrecking process. My son received a text message from one of his classmates that he received a secondary from Vandy. Apparently, he just then received an e-mail from Vandy and got too excited thinking that it was a secondary invitation.
The latest, according to SDN, is that Vandy is having technical difficulties with AMCAS and is not likely to send out secondary applications for several more days.
DS has 19 secondaries completed and out the door…2 received, but not completed…2 waiting for arrival (including Vanderbilt)…just about BURNED OUT and it’s only just begun…
Hey fellow parents! My D sent her application to AMCAS by 8am the 1st day. However, she has taken a number of courses at other colleges over the years, and so had to forward transcripts from the all. Unfortunately, her application kept showing as incomplete, and one of the colleges (which shall remain nameless but it is a high ranking school) and AMCAS kept blaming each other for not finding it. Finally, the college sent another transcript (mind you, it was for 1 stinking course she took over the summer!) on June 27. Because of this, she is in the cue for AMCAS to process in 5 business days from today!!! ARGGGG. She received a handful of secondaries which are in, but the rest are apparently waiting until her file is complete. At least she has found out the essay topics and can start to work on them now… This is going to be a long year!!!
@BigRedLongAgo, sorry to hear your D’s frustrating process with transcripts. After all this, hopefully AMCAS will put your D in front of the queue when they receive the transcript.
I found out that DS is also waiting for AMCAS verification. Except I can’t blame the college/AMCAS but the applicant himself! He only requested the transcript a week AFTER he submitted the primary!!! So we wait! It seems like everyone else’s kid is so much more on top of this process than mine.
Hello! My ds is going to be a freshman this year and I wanted ask a question of this group (since you are experienced at the premed process). Does he need a full year of calculus or can he take calculus AB first semester and statistics second semester and have satisfied math requirements for all med schools, mcat and his science classes? Or does he need to take Bc calculus too? Please forgive me if this is a silly question- having just finished the college application process - he is just starting to think about how to best prepare for applying to med school and make good choices freshman year.