Your letters of recommendation are the only part of your application you don't write. That's exactly what makes them valuable.

Admissions committees have your transcript and your essay. What they don't have is somebody else's read on you - whether you show up, whether you're teachable, whether people want to work with you. That's what a good letter does.

So pick people who actually know you. A department chair who can't pick you out of a lineup writes a worse letter than the PA you scribed for every Tuesday for two years. Every single time.

Logistics: letters go directly from your writer to CASPA, you can't upload them yourself. Request at least three even though two is the minimum to complete your application, because people get busy and one will always be late.

What I cover:

• Who to ask and who to avoid asking
• How many letters to request and why three is the floor
• How letters get submitted through CASPA
• What to give your writers so they can do a good job
• When to ask, and how far ahead
• Following up without being annoying

Resources:

Free application timeline: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-application-timeline

Free resume download: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/free-resume-download

PA Program Map: https://www.thepaplatform.com/pa-platform-map

Pre-PA counseling: https://www.thepaplatform.com/services/pre-pa-counseling

Welcome to episode 67 of the Pre Pa Club podcast.

Today we're going to talk about letters of recommendation.

Welcome to the Pre PA Club Podcast.

If you want to learn how to become a physician assistant, you're in the right place.

I'm your host, Savannah Perry.

Let's get to it.

Hello.

Thank you so much for tuning in.

This episode is sponsored by PA School Prep.

Now, I've talked about them before, but if you're starting PA school coming up in May, June, August, you need to get on it.

I fully support enjoying yourself and taking some time off, but don't lose that knowledge.

So if you need help refreshing on your anatomy and medical terminology, make sure you check out paschoolprep.com and you can use the code futurepa for a discount on this online course that walks you through a refresher on all this important information.

Now, people have found that they do better, obviously in first semester after refreshing with this.

So now some schools are even requiring it.

So check with your program, see if it's something that they want to incorporate.

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But yeah, check out paschoolprep.com and let's talk about letters of recommendation.

You can also watch this on YouTube if you go to YouTube.com thepaplatform if we haven't met before, I'm Savannah.

I'm a dermatology pa.

I'm also the founder of the PA platform and the Pre PA Club podcast.

Thank you so so much for tuning in.

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I think we have some great stuff in store, but if there's something you want to hear about, please let me know.

I want to make sure that I'm talking about everything that you have questions about, which today brings me to our topic of letters of recommendation.

Now, when you look at CASPA and PA school applications in general, this seems like a very small part, but it is actually so, so huge because this is what gives your application a personal sense.

So this is what helps the admissions committee feel like they're getting to know you and learning more about you, because the people who write your letters hopefully know you on a very personal level and can really speak to who you are.

So we're going to break down the logistics and the requirements of letters of recommendation.

I threw out in my pre PA Club Facebook group kind of a request for any questions you guys had about letters of recommendation.

And I got a lot of responses.

So we're going to jump into that and go through some of those.

I have my notes ready and I hope to answer all of your questions.

If you have any afterwards, just let me know.

So first of all, going from just what Casper requires and how they consider letters, they refer to letters of recommendation as evaluations.

There are a lot of names for these letters of reference, recommendations, evaluations, but ultimately these are the letters that you request to get personal proof that you are who you say you are and that they there are people backing you up who feel like you are going to be a great physician assistant.

So these letters have to be submitted by the letter writer to caspa.

They cannot come from you, they cannot come from this person's secretary.

They come directly from that person.

The way this works is when you get into CASPA and you can make an account ahead of time.

Keep in mind that letters do not carry on between cycles.

This is important.

If you aren't really planning on submitting your applications until a cycle down the road, don't request your letters yet because you're going to have to re request them.

Each cycle, your letters must be sent in again.

So these letters, you enter the person's contact information.

And something I've noticed on CASPA applications is that people don't designate who the people are.

And if schools are looking for a certain reference, how are they supposed to tell without looking at the letters?

So when you have the little box with the option to enter their name, their title, their occupation, fill that in as much as possible.

There's no reason to leave it blank.

You don't want them questioning whether this is a family reference, which by the way, you should never use.

A family member cannot be a reference, but just fill all that information in.

So you enter their email address and then that letter or the request for the letter comes directly from CASPA to the person.

They sign in, they make an account, and then they upload your letter.

They also have to fill out some little questionnaires with just characteristics about you, whether they feel like you're a fit candidate or not.

I've done letters for people.

It does not take very long.

It's not difficult.

Unless the person who's writing your letters may be very, very technical, technologically challenged, they should be fine.

But give them a heads up that this letter will be coming and that this request will be coming so that they don't delete it.

And one thing too is if your name is different, if the name you go by is different than your actual name, please let them know.

I had this issue with somebody I wrote a recommendation for.

She goes by her middle name.

And so I got this weird email asking like it just had her name in the subject line and I didn't even know her real name.

So I was like, oh, what is this about?

Luckily she texted me and asked me to do her letter.

So it was fine.

But you just want to give them a heads up if there could be any question at all.

Now, when the person uploads the letter, there are different statuses which we'll go through, but CASPA will let you enter into five letters.

You do not have to enter five.

You can enter a minimum of three, but you do have to request at least three.

And CASPA will not consider your application complete until at least two have been submitted.

Now this gets into kind of.

Well, different programs have different requirements.

That is true.

And it's up to you to make sure the letters you request are the right ones for the program.

Depending on who they want you to get traffic, write your letters, and we'll go through that in just a few minutes.

Now, once an evaluation has been completed and submitted, it cannot be removed or deleted.

If they haven't submitted it yet, you do have some room there to go in and maybe request a different letter or take that person off.

But once it has been submitted, they cannot delete it.

I remember last cycle I got an email from someone who their letter writer for some reason had written the whole letter as if they were going to medical school.

And I don't know if maybe that was a plan beforehand or something, but they were freaking out because this letter had been updated.

And really there's not anything you can do.

You can contact caspa, you can appeal to them, but ultimately once a letter is submitted, it's submitted.

So just make sure your letter writers are on the same page as you are.

Now, what do you need from your letter writers and what do you need to tell them?

First of all, you need their email address and their contact information.

Make sure all of that is accurate.

I have seen way too many applications held up in missing deadlines because their letters didn't get in on time.

You have got to stress to your letter writers how important it is for them to get these things in in a timely fashion.

And, and if that takes frequent reminders that's what it takes.

So don't feel like you're being too much of a bother because your future depends on it and they may just not understand.

I know everyone is busy, but help them to realize how important this is to you.

Tell your letter writer to watch their inbox for an email from Caspa.

Make sure they know your name and talk to them about what you want them to write your letter about and give them enough time.

So when should you ask your letter writer?

I think when you know you want them to write you a letter and when you're in close contact to them, ideally about six to 12 months before you apply.

You don't necessarily expect them to write your letter just then, but at least it's on their mind and they've thought about it and they know that it's coming rather than you want to submit in a week and you tell them that's not really ideal or professional.

Now when it comes to what they should write about.

You know Jamie from Jamie Nicole Pac on Instagram did an amazing guest post on the PA Platform blog and I'll link to that in the description because she actually included a letter that she had as one of her letters for PA school and she was accepted her first cycle, got in no problem.

So when you ask them to write you a letter, think about why you're asking this person to write you a letter and what you want them to write about.

Don't just say, hey, can you write me a letter?

You know, if it's an academic referral, if it's someone who a professor, you want them to be speaking to your academic successes and your ability to do well in PA school.

That's why they're writing you a letter.

They shouldn't really be talking about your patient care if they've never seen you in that area.

They may think you're a nice person, but that doesn't mean that they know you're going to do great with patients.

On the flip side, if you're having a supervisor from work write you a letter, they should be speaking to your ability to communicate with patients and work with patients and make them feel comfortable and how that will translate into the future, into you being an awesome physician assistant.

When it comes to, let's say, someone you shadowed, you know, that's different.

Because if it's a PA letter, they've been there.

They know what it takes takes to get to PA school, to survive PA school and to become a physician assistant.

And if they're willing to write you a letter, that Says a lot because that means you're going to be their colleague and they feel confident that you are someone they want to be part of this profession.

Now those are the things they should be talking about, how you are someone that fit right in, that they see being an awesome page at some point.

So just think about that.

Volunteering.

If you ask a volunteer coordinator, they should be speaking to your desire to help the underserved and your commitment to your community and how much you enjoy and love helping and serving others because that's the capacity they've seen you in.

Now once you've asked them, ideally you ask them in person if that's not possible.

Email is fine.

If you have to ask an email.

I mean email is a big thing these days.

I mean it's not like they don't get a lot of emails, but just make sure it doesn't get overlooked and that you get a response.

But ideally in person is better.

Now when it comes time to your application cycle, the cycle you are going to apply, the February before and keep in mind CASPA doesn't open until April for that cycle, but the February ish cycle, March before, go ahead and give that letter writer a heads up.

Say hey, just wanted to let you know, like I'm going to be applying come April, May, June, and I really am excited and thankful that you're writing me a letter and I, I'll be, you'll be getting an email from me.

Just, just a little heads up, a reminder, maybe that'll get them going on the letter.

Now in April when CASPA opens, go ahead and send those letter requests asap.

Get, get them out so that they can start getting your letters in.

Now if you, you need to kind of have a deadline as to when you want to submit your application.

But when it comes to kind of following up on those letters, every couple weeks, two to four weeks, I would be checking in.

Hey, did you get the email?

Did you look at it?

Have you had time to do my letter?

I would really appreciate if you could get that submitted.

Just something quick kind of checking in to make sure those get in.

Like I said earlier, at least two of your letters must be in for your application to be considered complete.

And that's really important.

But also just when you look at your letters in caspa, it'll say requested and that means you sent the request accepted, which means they've clicked on it, made an account and then complete means they actually submitted the letter.

Just so you note.

And all this is in the CASPA faq.

Alright.

Let's talk about committee letters.

Now, for medical school, committee letters are a big thing.

For PA school, not so much.

Usually committee letters are not required and that could just take up one of your spots and they're not even really desired.

I've actually never seen PA school that requires a committee letter.

If it's something that you have and you want to submit, that's fine.

Just know that this is not going to probably serve as your professor letter.

That needs to come from a professor that had you in their class, not an advisor, not a committee, a professor that had you and taught you.

So just something to keep in mind.

And if you do use a committee letter, you can't use any, any of the contributors as a separate individual letter.

So also that it just isn't really necessary, honestly.

So avoid committee letters.

But unless you think you have a really good one.

Alright, moving on.

One part when you get into CASPA that it'll ask you is if you want to waive your right to read your evaluation.

The answer is always yes.

There is no reason that you need to see your evaluation.

You, you should feel very confident that whoever wrote it wrote you a great letter.

If it's someone you asked, if you choose that they, that you don't want to waive your access and that you want to see the letter, it just looks fishy.

It makes them question why you would even want to do that or why you feel like it would be necessary for you to see that letter.

So I recommend just waiving the access.

Again, I see no reason not to.

One question that comes up is what if you want to ask someone to write a letter that you aren't going to be around for a little bit, or you aren't even applying soon?

Let's say you're in sophomore year of undergrad, you had a great professor, y' all had a great relationship, you would love for them to write you a letter, but you're not applying for two years.

That's okay.

You have options.

So number one, keep your options open because it could be that you find, find someone down the line that you think would be an even better letter writer and that's okay.

Or just go ahead and approach them and just say, hey, like explain the process.

You know, hey, I would love for you to write me a letter, but I'm not applying for a couple years and there's no way for me to save the letter.

CASPA does not use any of these letter retrieval services that are online.

If you want to go ahead and write it, you can save it on your computer, save it in your email so then later on you're ready to submit it when I do apply and try to keep in touch with that person, at least through email or something, so that they don't really forget who you are and they still feel comfortable submitting that letter down the line.

Now, when you're choosing who to ask, you want people who have seen you in different settings.

You don't want five academic letters or five PAs or five nurses you work with.

You really want different people.

Think more about personal, personal letters.

The more personal and the more it seems like that person knows you, the better you will get just a better response.

And it means more when the admissions committee reads that letter, if they can tell it that person really, really knows you.

You know, that's important.

Now, one question that came up in the Facebook group was, does it matter if the person has a lot of credentials?

Is that better than a personal letter?

No.

Schools do not care.

They probably don't know the person's credentials.

They may be a big deal in your town or in that hospital, but there's a lot of big deal people out there and it does not matter.

So I would not choose someone just based on their credentials.

I would choose someone because they know me and they're going to write a great letter for me that shows that they know that me.

Now moving on to recommended and required.

So if a school recommends a letter that is to me, required.

So if they recommend a PA letter, you better have a PA letter because more people than not are going to have that letter and you want to do as much as possible to fulfill their desires.

So.

So recommended to me, and this goes for coursework too, is required.

So let's talk about who you should ask.

Some variety.

So a professor, particularly if you have a lower GPA or struggled in a subject area, try to get that professor letter.

This can be very, very difficult if you had huge classes.

I went to the University of Georgia.

All of my science classes were three, 300 plus students.

And I can't really say that I ever felt like I knew a professor very well.

That's probably not great.

But I had to basically just go to a random professor and ask him if he would please write me a letter.

Because one of my schools required a professor letter.

I brought in my resume.

I know that that letter was Probably a form letter.

It I.

There's no way it had anything personal.

He wouldn't know me from Adam or from the person sitting next to me.

So I know that wasn't a strong letter, but it was required for a specific program.

Now, if you had online classes, that can be tough too, because you don't really see your professors face to face.

This is why it's great to go ahead and look into schools and programs so that you know what they're going to require.

You know that if they require a professor letter, you, you need to try to get to know one.

You need to do your best to try to make some connections to try to get that letter, because you'll need it now.

Next, a healthcare professional.

This is very common.

This can be a PA, MD, nurse practitioner, someone who works in healthcare that has seen you in a healthcare capacity.

A lot of PA schools like to see that PA letter.

And this should be someone that you either shadowed or worked with.

It should, should not be a personal reference.

Really.

None of your references should be personal references, unless that's specifically asked for.

Now, how much shadowing is appropriate to ask for a letter?

This comes up a lot.

You know, it really depends on your relationship with that PA and how comfortable you feel.

How comfortable they feel.

If they don't feel like they can write you a strong letter, they should feel comfortable enough to tell you that so that you can ask someone else.

But usually you want to have at least spent some time with that person.

I did have someone ask me to write a letter that I'd only spent a day with.

I did it, but I, I mean, I didn't have that much personal stuff to add.

I really could only speak to what I had seen from her that one day.

So I know that it wasn't that straight of a letter compared to the one I wrote for my medical assistant, where it basically made me cry because it made me think about how she's gonna leave me.

And I just was gushing about her and how amazing of a person she is.

And she may listen to this, so thank you.

But you know, it's just, you want to feel comfortable, you want them to feel comfortable, you want you to feel comfortable at the end of the day.

Now, a work supervisor, this could be in a healthcare setting or not a healthcare setting, and they may specify, but a work supervisor should be able to talk about your work ethic and how you interact with co workers and patients and what a great person you are to have around and how much they just enjoy and love Having you as an employee, this could be a nurse supervisor.

It should be someone who's above you in some way and supervises your work.

Someone you answer to more than just a co worker.

So some EMTs, they'll use their paramedic or like partner, which is sometimes okay because that person should know you very, very well.

Now, a volunteer supervisor, and I spoke about this before, but you do want someone who can speak to your commitment and schools these days are looking for that.

They want to see that you really care about your community and that's important.

And so I recommend finding something to get involved with and committing regularly.

Not just something you do one time.

You don't want to go to the soup kitchen one day for four hours and then try to get that person to write you a letter.

You want to go every weekend and really show that this is something that you're passionate about and that you care about.

And that's what's going to come out in your interview as well if you get asked about it.

Alright, let's talk about something that's a little bit taboo.

Writing your own letter.

And this comes up so much because schools are not schools.

But people will ask you to write your own letter.

And I know that's hard.

And here's the bottom line.

If you don't feel comfortable, don't do it.

Just tell that person, thanks, but no thanks.

What's that song?

Thank you.

Next.

But find someone else if you don't feel comfortable.

My recommendation is talk to that person and let them know you don't feel comfortable and say, I would prefer if you write my letter, but if you don't feel comfortable or don't have time, how about I give you some kind of bullet points?

You know, some things that I think you should touch on, some things that I think may be nice to include some characteristics, whatever achievements, and just give them kind of a list and see if they're willing to put that into a letter themselves and write it.

Just helping them to get started, Giving them a little push, a little nudge, but not necessarily writing out your entire letter because yeah, it's tough, it's hard when you're asked to do that.

And again, if you don't feel comfortable, just don't do it.

Thankfully, I was never asked to do this.

Now with school's requirements, let's say that a school requires three letters and you submit five.

What's gonna happen?

Each school handles this differently.

Some schools look just at the first three letters that were submitted, some will go ahead and look at all of them.

Some have specific they're going to pull out that professor letter, that PA letter.

They're going to look for the ones they specifically requested.

So it's okay to request more than what a school wants, but they may not necessarily get completely looked at or evaluated.

A weird question came up in the Pre PA Club Facebook group that I never heard or considered and I'm not really sure if this is just a cop out, but they somebody said what if faculty are not allowed to make a recommendation?

Like the hospital doesn't let them.

I have never heard of this.

But if that's it, if you know that's an issue, you got to look elsewhere, you got to get out there, start volunteering, get a different job because you need that letter.

And if they can't do it, they can't do it.

And I guess that's not going to change.

So you've got to look for different options if you need to.

Now for re applicants, should you or can you use the same letters?

You can, especially if you feel like they are the strongest, most personal letters for you.

If your letter writers are willing, I would encourage them and you to try to see if they will update the letter or add something to it or at least the very minimum update the date on there.

So try to get a little bit of a different letter, but at the end of the day, I mean it's fine.

Kind of the same with the personal statement, try to see if there's a different option.

And one thing that I think about, especially if you feel like you are qualified, if your application got looked at, if you interviewed or accepted, something worked, but something didn't work.

Whether that was your letters, your personal statement.

But I don't know why you would submit the same thing again if it didn't work the first time.

I don't know, maybe that's just me.

But anyway, so if you feel like the letter is really strong, go ahead and use it again.

But if not, move on, find somebody else.

All right, I think that's all I got about letters, but I hope this was helpful.

If you have any further questions, feel free to comment.

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See you guys next time.

Bye.