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 needed to organize the process, hence this web page. PLEASE read this page carefully before you come to ask for a letter.

First, some things you need to know. 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 bunches. If you need a letter from me in summer, I will generally not write it until the end of the Spring semester (also I generally would like to see your grade if you are in my Spring class). You can ask me well ahead of time, but I will usually not write your letter until I have to.

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?

Obviously, the better I know you, the better letter I will be able to write. I understand that a significant problem is that many of you don't like to come to a lot of office hours or don't know how to make yourself well-known to me. I used to spend a lot of time talking to students to get an idea of what to write, at least an hour per student. However, I now write way too many letters to do that any more, somewhere between 50-100 a year. If I take an hour to talk to each student and an hour to write the letter that amounts to 2 - 3 weeks in working days each year just writing letters (for which I don't get paid)! So, I want to help you, but you have to help me by making the process as efficient as possible.

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 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.

In general I will only write a letter for you if you are going to use the pre-health office here on campus, so that I don't have to deal with multiple admissions procedures and sending lots of letters to different places. Thanks.