Letters of Recommendation

Letters for this year's applicants are due in the house office by May 15, 2008.

Letters of Recommendation form the core of your application to medical school. The best letters are those written by people who know you well. In addition to the Eliot House Committee Letter, you will need to request 3-6 letters of recommendation from professors, research advisors, employers, etc. with whom you have worked over the past few years.

Once you have decided to apply to medical school, please request your letters of recommendation as soon as possible. Recommenders need time to compose you letters. The number one reason students' applications are delayed is late letters of recommendation.

We generally recommend that at least one letter come from the professor of a basic science course or scientific research advisor.

If you would like to have a recommendation sent to the House Office to be filed for current or future use, please fill out the Eliot Recommendation Waiver Form. Give this completed form to your recommender, along with a pre-addressed, pre-stamped envelope and and ask him or her to send the form with your letter of recommendation. Please point out that he or she needs to complete and sign the waiver form at the bottom.

Virtual Evals

Harvard College has moved to the VirtualEvals system. This means that your recommendation letters are uploaded to a central server where they can be accessed by individual medical schools, as well as the AMCAS letter pilot program, at their convenience. Advantage? Less paper, fewer mailing envelopes.

Below are the schools not yet using the Virtual Evals system. If any of the following schools are on your list, you'll still need to provide us with self-sealing, pre-stamped 9x12 mailing envelopes for them. 3 first class stamps is usually sufficient for postage to U.S. medical schools. Canadian schools do not utilize VirtualEvals and require envelopes with at least 4 first class stamps.

* UCLA - David Geffen School of Medicine
* University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
* Universidad Central del Caribe School of Medicine
* University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine
* San Juan Bautista School of Medicine in Puerto Rico
* University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine (BS/MD program)
* Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine (BS/MD program)