Vetstradamus: How To Get The Best Letters of Recommendation

Posted on November 1, 2009

Dear Vetstradamus,

I am looking to do an internship next year and am just getting started in senior clinics. I am pretty nervous about getting letters of recommendation and was wondering if you have any advice about this.

- Letter Seeker

Dear Letter Seeker,

This is a great question and one faced by many students due to the big time crunch between the start of clinical rotations and the deadline for submitting application materials for internships. Your letters of recommendation are probably the single most influential part of an internship application. A mediocre or marginal letter can hurt your chances of getting a top notch internship. To get the best letters, you want to demonstrate during your rotation that you are knowledgeable, studious, easy and enjoyable to work with, a team player, and a hard worker. So speak up in rounds, be willing to take the tough cases, research your cases before and after you see them, and be willing to stay late to help all of the clinicians and classmates on your service. After that, here are some of my pearls of wisdom to get the best letters:

Who you should ask- The letters that are given the most credence are ones from well known and respected board certified faculty that you worked with on clinical rotations and that know you fairly well. Although you may have worked closer with residents than faculty, ideally, I would want at least 2 letters to come from faculty including 1 from a senior faculty member. If you are applying to a private practice or institution where a clinician previously worked, that may also carry increased weight for that particular internship. The internship selection committee really cares about your clinical abilities so keep in mind that if you ask a faculty person that you worked with on a research project to write you a letter, they may not be able to comment very much about the your most relevant attributes. If they can write you an excellent letter, that can still be helpful but I would make sure that at least 2 of your letters are primarily clinical.

It’s not always better to be popular- Every school has a few “popular clinicians” who seem to get asked to write letters by many students. Asking them for a letter can be a risky proposition for several reasons. In addition to them only having a finite amount of time to write high quality and different sounding letters, they tend to write their letters in a way that essentially ranks the students they are evaluating. Even if they try not to do this, it is common for a selection committee to contact a faculty person that wrote letters for several applicants and ask them which 1 or 2 they would pick. If that person isn’t you, this can hurt your chances.

Recognize the time crunch- It can be frustrating to feel like you are barely starting your senior year and immediately need letters of reference because you have no time to establish close working relationships. While I don’t have a solution, my recommendation is that if you are interested in a particular discipline, sign up for that service early on in your clinical year so that the clinicians have a chance to get to know you and subsequently write a strong letter. Also, clinicians understand how the system works and share your frustration to some extent.

Get an assortment- If you know you want to pursue a residency in, for example, surgery after your internship, you do not necessarily want all of your letters to be from surgeons. Certainly, at least one should be from a surgeon but if all of your letters are from surgeons, a selection committee may be turned off by the lack of representation from any other area. Unless you are applying for a strictly surgical internship, they will want to have letters indicating your proficiency in other areas as well.

Be proactive- There is nothing wrong with informing a faculty member at the beginning of a rotation that you will be applying for internships and may ask them subsequently for a letter of recommendation. If you do this, you should make sure that you take enough cases with them for them to write a thorough evaluation but DO NOT do this at the expense of working with other clinicians on the service. Faculty have a pretty good radar for this type of behavior and it is generally frowned upon. Frequently, all of the clinicians on your rotation will be evaluating you and often, a faculty member will seek the input of the other clinicians or residents on the service when writing your letter.

Know when and how to cut your losses- Know that if you ask almost anyone whether they can write you a letter of recommendation, they will say yes. That does not tell you anything about whether or not they will write a good one. I highly recommend asking if they feel comfortable enough with your knowledge and performance to write you a strong/excellent/outstanding letter of recommendation. If there is any hesitation on their part, be polite and thank them and just tell them you will provide them additional information if you end up needing the letter.

Give letter writer sufficient time- You should ask a potential reference for a letter at least 4-6 weeks in advance of the due date. Many faculty members are going to be asked by a lot of students to write letters and allowing them sufficient time to put adequate thought and effort into it is very useful. This is especially true when asking a letter from a “popular” clinician or when a clinician is going to depart for vacation. Depending on the clinician you might need to remind him or her a week or two before the deadline.

Make it as easy as possible for them- You should give your references a list of the institutions and addresses that you will be sending an internship application with the specific internship title (ie. rotating medicine and surgical internship). Also, provide them an updated and complete curriculum vitae, GPA, class rank, and any other information you want them to know. Supply your letter writer with stamped and pre-addressed envelopes for all of the institutions you want them to send the letter to. This shows a letter writer that you are organized and have planned ahead and will help to make sure that your letter gets sent to all of the correct places.

Do not submit more than 4 letters- Most internships require 3 letters. There is not necessarily an advantage to submitting a fourth letter and I primarily recommend a fourth letter for instances where there is someone that can write a unique and excellent letter for you but is perhaps not just another clinician that you worked with as a senior. For example, if there is a vet who knows you well, or a non-veterinarian that can add something unique to your application, you may want to have them as a reference without giving up a third clinical letter. Generally submitting 5 or more letters is not helpful and not recommended.

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