Question about LORs and AMCAS

kristin5792
Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:57:12 +0000

I have no idea if AMCAS changes from year to year.

When I applied in 2010, there was a page on the online AMCAS for LORs. The page asked for the name of the recommender, the type of letter, etc. My school instructed me to just write the head of the committee’s name and then to select that it was a committee letter. AMCAS generated a form that I printed, signed, and turned into my committee. The committee took it from there.

The committee requested that I send at least 3 recommendation letters to them–2 from science profs, 1 from a non-science prof. I sent more than 3. For each of those letters, university policy is to sign a release form that you won’t read the letter. I completed those forms and gave them to my professors with instructions for getting them to the committee.

When all the letters got to the committee, I had my committee interview. After that, my cover letter was written, my other letters attached, and off the package went. All schools got my letters. Two of my schools had different rec letter requirements–I just told my committee about it, and they took care of it.

The slight hiccup that I ran into was that a few of my strongest writers were unable to finish my letters by April (I mean…they’re full time professors, who could blame them?), and my committee didn’t interview during the summer. So I’d completed everything I could complete by July, and ended up having to wait until the end of August for my committee interview and my LORs to be complete. Was it a total disaster? No. It kinda sucked, but hey, it worked out in the end.