Dental School Letter of Recommendation
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your application. If your school has a pre-medical or pre-dental
committee, medical and dental schools prefer that you obtain your
letter of recommendation from the committee. If your school does not
have a committee or you have graduated from the undergraduate
institution, then you will need to obtain individual letters of
recommendations.
Committee Letters of Recommendation
At Saint Mary's, a pre-medical/pre-dental committee will produce
a composite evaluation letter. The committee is comprised of two
science professors, one nonscience professor, and the Health
Professions Advisor. The faculty members are chosen by the student
and they should be chosen carefully and given every opportunity to
get to know you. It is too late to begin this process when the
letters are due.
Recommendations from faculty who have taught you are the most
important, particularly science faculty. Whatever your major, it is
crucial to have at least two recommendations from science professors
in at least two different areas of basic science (biology,
chemistry, physics, math), unless you have already had upper
division or graduate courses, in which case faculty from those
courses would be suitable. You should also choose one nonscience
professor for a recommendation. If you have had research or other
experience, a recommendation from someone who supervised that work
is useful, if you did well.
It is the student's responsibility to get to know individuals who
can write a letter of evaluation. Failure to get to know three (or
more) professors who could write accurate and reflective letters of
evaluation is a serious deficiency.
The process of obtaining your committee letter begins with the
student contacting the professors and requesting their
participation. Next, the student should schedule an interview. It is
the student's responsibility to schedule the interview and reserve a
room. The committee will interview the student and then the
committee will meet to discuss the content of the letter. This
process should take place in the Spring of the year that you are
going to apply to medical or dental school.
You will be asked to sign a waiver of rights to have your file
closed. This means that you will not be eligible to read the
committee letter of evaluation. Closed files are preferred by the
professional schools, but you do have a legal right to have an open
file. If you choose an open file, it will be indicated on the letter
of recommendation sent from the college. It is your responsibility
to inform any faculty member asked to sign the letter that the file
will be open and that you retain the right to read the letter.
Medical and dental schools take these committee recommendations
seriously. Admission committees know that these are objective
evaluations from individuals who are experienced in judging
undergraduates applying to medical and dental school.
The following criteria are used in the evaluation:
- Motivation, genuineness, and depth of commitment
- Maturity, personal development, ability to cope with life
situations
- Emotional stability, performance under pressure, mood
stability, ability to relate to others
- Interpersonal relations, ability to get along with others,
rapport, cooperation, attitudes toward supervision
- Empathy, sensitivity to needs of others, consideration, tact
- Judgment, ability to analyze a problem, common sense,
decisiveness
- Resourcefulness, originality, skillful management of
available resources
- Reliability, dependability, sense of responsibility,
promptness, conscientiousness
- Communication skills, clarity of expression, articulation
- Perseverance, stamina, endurance
- Self-Confidence, capacity to achieve with awareness of own
strengths and weaknesses
Additional Letters of Recommendation
Non-faculty recommenders, on or off campus, might include student
affairs staff or deans, coaches, chaplains, work supervisors, and
research or volunteer supervisors. Those who have supervised you in
the field that you hope to enter or have seen you work directly with
in a helping capacity can write very useful letters.
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