Confidential letters of recomm. for old pre-meds?

Hi everyone,
I just discovered this organization, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it! We OldPreMeds need to stick together.
Case in point: I discovered last week that the Career Services office where I am doing my pre-med courses (UNC-Chapel Hill) will not hold and send out letters of recommendation for non-degree-seeking students. For regular undergrads, premeds have their letter-writers submit confidential letters directly to the career services office, who keeps them in a file. When the student receives a secondary from a given med school, he/she contacts Career Services, and they submit the letter.
After saying they couldn’t help me, they suggested I contact the Career Services dept at the college where I earned my degree (Yale). But they said that I have been out for more than five years, so they can’t/won’t help me either (I graduated in 1998).
Does anyone have any suggestions? I hate the idea that I will have to ask my letter-writers for multiple copies, assuming that more than one school sends me a secondary. But I definitely want the letters to be confidential, and for the med schools to realize that fact. Has anyone else run into this? Is there a third-party service that can provide this service (probably for a fee)?
Thanks for any and all suggestions! I am looking at going to D.C. for the convention in June…I hope it works out!
Sincerely,
– Cory

I just did a search here and there are commercial services available to provide this service for you. One that was mentioned favorably was Referencenow.com.

Ohio State’s Career Services no longer does LOR’s for people. The pre-med advisor recommended Interfolio (an online service - www.interfolio.com). Interfolio was easy to use, my writers had no problems with it, and none of the schools I applied to had any problems with it.
You have your letter writers submit their letters (along with your waiver to see it) to Interfolio. Then, when you need to send them out, you go online, fill in the address, choose which letters you want sent (I had five letters written, but some schools only wanted three), and viola . . . I had no problems with any of the schools receiving the letters. Interfolio is reasonable - a yearly fee to store your documents and $5 to send documents to one address (1 document or 10).
Amy

Thank you for your suggestions! I was hesitant to randomly choose one of the services on the Internet, but I feel better to know that the two sites mentioned come highly recommended.
Thank you for your help!
– Cory

My local pals and I are all using Interfolio.

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Interfolio was easy to use, my writers had no problems with it, and none of the schools I applied to had any problems with it.
You have your letter writers submit their letters (along with your waiver to see it) to Interfolio. Then, when you need to send them out, you go online, fill in the address, choose which letters you want sent (I had five letters written, but some schools only wanted three), and viola . . . I had no problems with any of the schools receiving the letters. Interfolio is reasonable - a yearly fee to store your documents and $5 to send documents to one address (1 document or 10).
Amy


I, too, have heard good things about Interfolio.
Cheers,
Judy

FYI, Interfolio and ReferenceNow are the same company.

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FYI, Interfolio and ReferenceNow are the same company.


Interesting. I didn’t know that.
Cheers,
Judy