Letters of Recommendation (LOR)

General Premed Discussion
1

How many letters of recommendation do MD and DO school generally require? How does it look if you send more than the required amount? (It would be great if you could specify how many from sciences V.S. general studies V.S. extracurricular activities)

2

The amount of LOR depends on what school you apply to. So, I would recommend looking at their website. In most cases, it is a minimum of 3 LOR (2 from science professor, 1 from non-science professor). Most competitive applicants send in about 6 (max amount on AMCAS is 10). For MD, I would recommend having 1-2 MD LORs, while for DO, 1-2 DO LORs.

Honestly, there isn’t a set rule as to how many science LORS vs how many EC LORS, etc. I think it is important to have people that know you the best send in LORs. With this in mind, I would recommend more science LORS than non-science LORS.

This is the ideal applicant LOR guideline:

  1. Science Professor 1 who gave you an A grade and you have a good relationship with*
  2. Science Professor 2 who gave you an A grade and you have a good relationship with**
  3. Non-science Professor (humanities, arts, English) who gave you a A grade and you have a good relationship with
  4. Other 1 - this can be your manager at a job, a physician that you shadowed, EC person, etc.
  5. Other 2 - this can be your manager at a job, a physician that you shadowed, EC person, etc.
    • good relationship = the professor knows your name/face and knows why you want to be a doctor
      ** - if you do research, your research professor can fit here too

Hope this helps!

3

I’m gonna disagree with the idea that there is an ideal number to be competitive. I think you should focus on getting the strongest possible letters rather than satisfying a threshold for the number of them. Once you’ve met the minimum requirements for the schools to which you’re applying (usually 2 science profs plus 1 additional from any other source), you don’t need anything else. I think only sending the minimum required number of letters that are very strong is way better/more impactful than including additional possibly weaker letters just because you want to bump up the number of letters to include a wider range of people. If you can get a large number of really strong letters, then by all means, get them, but I don’t think having a large number along is going to make you more competitive.

I’m in the camp of quality >>>>> quantity.