I am often asked to write letters of recommendation, particularly in the pre-health area (medical, dental and pharmacy school). I know that you don't like to ask me to do this, and you know that I don't like to do it, however, this is a necessary evil for us all. I get asked to write a LOT of letters, so many that I need to organize the process, hence this web page. PLEASE read this page carefully before you come to ask for a letter.

First, you do not have to get an A in my class for me to write you a letter. I have written letters for many students who got C grades in my class. I don't care about your grade if you can convince me that you are a good candidate for you chosen career.

Second, I like to write letters, especially med/dental school etc, in groups, to save my time. If you are applying for entry in Fall 2015 (for example), you will be submitting your application in summer 2014. In which case I will write your letter at the end of the spring semester 2014, after classes have ended and before the summer starts properly. So, you need to get your application material together for me to write your letter at THIS TIME!

I do NOT like to get letter requests dribbling in over the summer, since I have a lot of work to do over the summer, I also often travel, and letter writing disrupts my routine and interrupts my work.

Unless there are exceptional circumstances I will only write a letter for you if you are using the pre-health office here on campus. It takes time for me to write separate letters, and dealing with different admissions websites is a pain, since I need to register for each one and this takes time that I don't have. AMCAS is particularly bad in this regard, their so-called Letter Writer service does not work on any browser on my computer, they do not accept Word files, I have wasted a lot of time with them in the past and don't want to deal with them again until they modernize their website. PharmCAS is the obvious exception since pharmacy letters can not be submitted any other way. Using their site is fairly painless anyway.

I do not need to get to know you well in office hours to write your letter, but you do need to give me lots of information, see below.

I will usually only write a letter for you if you waive your right to see the letter. There needs to be mutual trust in this process, and anyway, it doesn't look good to admissions committees if you don't waive your right to see your letters.

The important point about the letter is not what grade you got in class (they can read your transcript), although I will certainly include a few sentences about this if I can. Good things for me to write here include things like "asked good questions in office hours", "seemed to really want to understand rather than memorize", "helped other students", "responded very well to suggestions", stuff like that. The main point of the letter is the "touchy-feely" stuff, what have you done to convince me and the school that you are applying to that you will be a good and caring health practitioner and a successful student in their program. Here is a common problem, however. I often ask a student "what should I write about you?". The answer is often "I don't know". Well, if YOU don't know, how am I supposed to know?

First, come and see me and ask if I will write your letter. If I don't know you at all I may have to say no. Please be understanding if I say no. We all need my letters to be taken seriously, and that won't happen if I write lots of letters for people I don't know at all. If I can write a letter for you, I will ask you to fill out my "pre-health letter" form (see below).

CLICK HERE TO GET A COPY OF MY "PRE-HEALTH LETTER" FORM, IN WORD FORMAT

This part is IMPORTANT. You will need to give me a HARD COPY of this form, TOGETHER with a copy of the green (or pink) pre-health waiver form, AND a copy of your cv/resume and your personal statement (even if it is only in rough draft form), AND a photograph of you in case I need to connect a name to a face! You will need to give me all of these PAPER CLIPPED TOGETHER, or else I WILL lose one or more of them and you won't get your letter in time. Make sure that you include contact information on the form, occasionally I need to ask further questions.

Now, sometimes I get busy (very busy), so I may not get to you straight away, in general it is going to take me at least a couple of weeks or so. If it is in the Spring semester, you may have to wait until the end of the semester as mentioned above. You always have my permission to send me an email asking whether I received your form, and when I might be able to get back to you.