Many of you (those who are applying to medical/dental school this year) have
been checking in to find out if you are ready for a Spring committee letter.
I thought it might be useful to share with you the committee letter writing
process.

 

Students at Hunter are lucky in that they have a Committee letter that helps
enhance their applications to health professions schools.  Many schools do
not offer such a service to their students!  The faculty who write these
letters on your behalf must do so without really knowing you as a student or
as a person.  You are assigned to a faculty member who will meet with you
for 45 minutes to an hour.  Based on that meeting, and on the contents of
your file, this person must sit down and compose a letter that will
highlight your accomplishments, smooth over any rough patches you might have
as an applicant (a semester of bad grades, a C in organic, etc), as well as
present a compelling argument that you are who you portray yourself as in
your application.  Thus it is imperative that this faculty member, who has
only met you once, to have as many supporting comments about your ability as
a student and person as possible from other sources.  Some of these sources
can come from your volunteer letter, from your employment letter, from your
research letter.  However, the most important piece will come from faculty
who have had you in class over the course of a semester or two.  These
comments, from lecturers and lab and recitation instructors, are the "meat
and potatoes" of your letter and there is no good substitute for their
comments.  Many of you have complained of faculty and lab instructors who
have not handed in evaluations and you seem upset that we make YOU
responsible for getting them to complete them.  This is not done to be
punitive; this is done so that we are sure that the letter being sent on
your behalf is as strong and comprehensive and supportive of your efforts as
possible.  We are not penalizing you for not having evaluations; we are
forcing you to pursue these comments with the same vigor and zeal you
display in studying for these classes.  Not having one or two evaluations is
ok.  It is not ok, however, if you are an "A" student and you only have five
or six evaluations in your file.  The fewer evaluations, the fewer comments,
the weaker your letter!  We appreciate that this is not in your control but
we must insist that you make collecting these evaluations a priority so that
your letter is the best it can be.  If you are struggling to get science
evaluations then begin to collect evaluations from non-science faculty as
well.  These cannot wholly substitute for science evaluations but they do
add some "meat".  This way we will have plenty of comments that can verify
the impression of the faculty person who will write your Committee letter.

 

Last, our deadline of March 1st is again not to be punitive.  As of March
3rd we will begin making assignments for the Spring committee letter.  We
will assign students until we run out of faculty.  Once all faculty have
been assigned we will rollover any students left into the Fall for committee
letter assignment.  So if you cannot complete your file by March 1st you can
certainly HOPE that we will have faculty left for an assignment later in the
month.  But students are assigned on a first come, first served basis.  And
the assignments cannot be made unless your file is COMPLETE.  To ensure your
spot you should certainly do those things that are well within your control:
make sure your resume, all transcripts, and the premed packet are in your
file by the 1st. Make sure your dean of students report is on the way by the
1st. Be sure you have enough courses done to qualify for a Committee letter
(six lectures and labs for postbaccs, at least 50 credits done here at
Hunter for undergrads and a science GPA for everyone of at least 3.3).  I
have included here the online evaluation link for faculty to use if they
wish.  http://webforms.hunter.cuny.edu/premed/ . If you are not sure of your
science GPA go to the registrar's GPA calculator to tabulate all your
biology, chemistry, physics and math grades from ALL schools attended in the
US by using the following link:
http://registrar.hunter.cuny.edu/subpages/gpacalculator.shtml 

 

Sorry for the length but I thought it would help you to see how the process
works so that you might be a tad bit more pro-active in going after these
evaluations! 

 

 

Office hours for spring 2008

M-Th 10AM-12PM, Wed and Thurs 2-3PM, Tues 2-4PM

 

L.Wood-Hill

Director, Prehealth Professions Programs

Hunter College of CUNY

695 Park Ave, E812

NY, NY 10021

212-772-5244

FAX: 212-772-5138

http://studentservices.hunter.cuny.edu/prehealth.htm

 


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