Letter of Evaluation Packet
Types of Letters
- Committee Letter: A one to two page letter that gives the health profession school some background on you, your education, and your motivation. Your extracurricular activities, volunteer and research experiences will be discussed.
- “Inside Letters”: These are letters from faculty and staff of the Claremont Colleges. You should ask for no more than three inside letters.
- “Outside Letters”: These are letters from non-Claremont people, which can be sent in addition to your “inside letters”. Some outside letters might include: an undergraduate professor or advisor (if you are a transfer student), internship/volunteership doctor or supervisor, and/or previous work supervisor. You should only request 1-2 outside letters.
Virtual Evaluation Overview
For the 2005-06 Medical School Application cycle, your Letters of Evaluation will be transmitted electronically to the Medical Schools to which you apply. This new program is called Virtual Evaluations (VE) and is provided by the National Association of Advisors for the Health Professions (NAAHP).
Here’s an overview of how it works: Your Evaluation Letters will be converted to a PDF format and uploaded to the VE website; then the Medical Schools from which you receive Secondaries will be authorized to download your Letters. Medical Schools can only access the Letters of applicants who have applied to their School.
Medical Schools have been overwhelmingly supportive of the VE system. There will no longer be the problem of “lost” Letters, and your Letters will be received by Medical Schools much more quickly than by the US Mail Service. As of October 2005, all but eight Osteopathic and eight Allopathic US Medical Schools have agreed to use the VE system. The Dental and Veterinary Application Services also have a centralized system for transmitting Letters electronically.
Below are the lists of US Allopathic and Osteopathic Medical Schools not yet using VE.
US ALLOPATHIC MEDICAL SCHOOLS NOT USING VE
University of California Los Angeles*
University of California San Francisco
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Tufts University School of Medicine
University of Missouri School of Medicine, Columbia
University of Missouri School of Medicine, Kansas City
University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine
The Universidad Central del Caribe, Puerto Rico
*The UCLA/Charles Drew program is participating in VE.
US OSTEOPATHIC MEDICAL SCHOOLS NOT USING VE
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Florida*
Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine
Pikeville College School of Osteopathic Medicine
Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine
New York College of Osteopathic Medicine of the New York Institute of Technology
Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine
West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine
*Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Pennsylvania, is participating in VE.
Virtual Evaluations for Medical School Applications Process
- You, the applicant, will still solicit letters of recommendation for your file.
- Once the Committee Letter (CL) has been written, it will be converted to a PDF format and uploaded to the VE website where it will be made available along with other letters from your packet (via secure log in and password) to the designated person at each medical school where you are applying. The designated medical schools will then receive an email telling them that your letters are available to download and print. The end product will look just like what medical schools are used to receiving from The Joint Science Department. Medical schools can only access the letters of applicants who have applied to their school. Please remember that we won’t be "sending" the Committee Letter (CL) to participating medical schools but rather we will be transmitting it to the VE server at Duke University, and the CL will always includes the supporting documents (letters of recommendation).
- After you have been notified that your Committee Letter is ready, you will need to provide us with your final VE list of schools. If you are taking the April MCAT you may want to wait until you receive your results in June before you give us your list of schools. Please make sure you have all your letters in to our office before you send us your list of authorized schools. We will not transmit your CL to VE until you send us this list. For example, if you are still waiting for letters that you want to have included with your CL, you should wait to give us the VE schools list until the letters have been received because once the CL is transmitted, you cannot add any more supporting letters to the PDF file.
- Please use the VE Schools List, available in your handbook and on this Web Site to indicate your final list of schools. Additionally, you will need to request letters sent to all non-VE schools, including foreign medical schools (see the Sending Letters via the U.S. Postal Service) Section of the Handbook. Please see above for a list of schools who currently are not using the VE System.
- If you are applying to both allopathic and osteopathic medical schools, two separate files/records with distinct CLs will be transmitted to VE as long as both lists of schools are in your file.
- If you are applying to joint programs (e.g. MD/PhD, MD/MPH, DO/PhD, etc), you will usually list/check off only the medical school that is offering the joint program. In a few cases, MD/PhD programs would like to have access to your CL independently, and they are listed separately on the schools list. Be sure to check off BOTH the medical school AND the MD/PhD program if you are applying to a school that requests this (e.g. UC San Diego)
- Although you cannot add supporting letters to your CL once it has been transmitted (because it is one PDF file), you can add additional schools to VE. If you are adding several additional schools, we recommend that you add them all at once rather than piecemeal, and please submit to our office an additional VE schools list.
- If you find that it would be beneficial for you to send additional letters of recommendation to schools once you have transmitted your CL to VE, you may do so outside the VE system. You should have any additional letters sent to your our office for your file. Then, when you want them sent to schools, you will follow the directions on how to have your letters sent via the U.S. Postal Service below.
Medical schools have been overwhelmingly supportive of using VE to access letters of evaluation. Being able to download your CL at will, there will no longer be the problem of "lost" letters because duplicates can be downloaded at any time. And your letters will be received by medical schools much more quickly than by snail mail.
Sending Letters via the U.S. Postal Service
If a letter packet can not be sent electronically we can customize the packet depending on what letters you feel would be best for each school. However, you need to make the instructions clear for each school. For instance, you may have an outside letter from an Osteopathic Physician that you want only sent to an Osteopathic School and you may also have a letter from an Allopathic physician you want sent only to the Allopathic School. Please give us clear instructions and we can customize your packets for each request. Last year schools that did not accept electronic letters of evaluation included UCLA and Western University of the Health Sciences. As this new technology becomes more available we believe this will be the way all health professions schools will want to receive your evaluation letters.
- After you have received a secondary application from an AMCAS/ACOMAS school or when you send your primary application to a non-AMCAS medical school you need to contact the Pre-health Office in writing to request your letters to be sent. No phone requests will be honored. An example of the request is below. Please try to send us multiple requests at one time. It is easier to do many at once rather than one every day. Once you have contacted our office in writing it should take no longer than 5 days to have your letter sent to the medical school you have requested.
The example below illustrates how your request should appear. The following methods of contact are accepted:
- E-MAIL: jolson@scrippscollege.edu
- FAX (909) 621-8588
- Mail:
To the attention of:
Ms. Jodi Olson
Joint Science Department
W.M. Keck Science Center
925 North Mills Avenue
Claremont, CA 91711
An example of a request for letter to be sent, if your letters can not be sent electronically, should appear as follows:
TO: Veronica Scott
FROM: Jane Doe, SSN#:001-01-0001, AMCAS# 0000001
DATE: August 30, 2006
RE: Letters of Evaluation
I have received the secondaries for the following schools; please have my Letter Packet sent as I have instructed below:
1. Office of Admissions
Rosalind Franklin University of
Medicine and Science
Chicago Medical School
600 S. Paulina, Suite# 524
Chicago, Illinois 60612
Special instructions: Note the above is an allopathic school so include my AMCAS number
Outside letters: Include Dr. Cantner’s letter and Professor Abbott. Leave out Dr. Allen she will send directly because she is an alumna. Also send Reverend Thomas’s letter because he knows the Dean. Do not include Dr. Smith because he is a D.O. and this is an allopathic school.
Committee letter: Yes
Inside letters: none
Deadline is November 11, 2006
2. Emory University School of Medicine
Medical School Admissions/Room# 303
Woodruff Health Sciences Center, Administration Building
1440 Clifton Road, NE
Atlanta, Georgia 30322-4510
Special instructions: Note the above is an allopathic school so include my AMCAS number
Outside letters: Include everything except Reverend Thomas’s Letter because this is not a religious school and Dr. Smith’s letter because he is a DO and the above is an allopathic medical school.
Committee letter: send the composite and all the letters that comprise it
Inside letters: all the letters that comprise the composite and Dr. Copp’s letter because that did not get in on time to be included in the composite.
Deadline is November 30, 2006
3. Western University of Health Sciences
College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific
Administration Building III
309 Third Street, Suite# 207
Pomona, CA 91709
Special instructions: Note the above is an osteopathic school so include do not include my AMCAS number
Outside letters: Include everything except Reverend Thomas’s Letter because this is not a religious school. Also add Dr. Smith’s letter because he is an osteopathic doctor and they require a letter from a D.O.
Committee letter: send the composite and all the letters that comprise it
Inside letters: all the letters that comprise the composite and Dr. Copp’s letter because that did not get in on time to be included in the composite.
Deadline is November 1, 2006 etc…
- Verify that your letters have been sent and/or received! Feel free to call us or the medical schools to verify your letters have been sent and received. We appreciate at least one call during the process to check records with you and make sure we are on the right track concerning letters requested and sent.
- What if we sent the letter but the medical school has not received it? Call us immediately. We verify and if necessary send another copy out ASAP. If they will allow it we will FAX a copy to them and send on a hard copy in regular mail. If it is close to a deadline and regular mail will not get your letter there on time, we will have it federal expressed.
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