Applications can be sent in sept. 1st, and by that time, I will have 2 of my 4 LOR’s completed (one from a neurosurgeon and one from a general surgeon). I have two more NSx rotations, but they won’t be completed until late october, which means my two other NS LOR’s won’t be in until that time.

Will this sigificantly impact my application in a negative way? My next two sub-I’s are at very solid programs, and again, my application will not reflect that I have completed them at the time my application is initially viewed. Thanks for the feedback.

I am in a somewhat similar position. I have one letter from an away subI from June from the chairman of that program, plus one letter from my home chairman. I wasn’t able to get a solid consensus on whether programs would actually look at my app with just two letters (starting Sept 1) and offer me interviews or not, so to play it safe I asked another faculty member at my home program to write a third letter, which will go with my app by Sept 1 (3 letters total).

I’m doing another away subI for Sept, and that letter will still get into ERAS in time (aiming for mid Oct), but for my Oct subI, there is no way that a letter will make it in time to make any difference, so I am not even planning on asking for one from that program.

Hope this helps. Sorry I don’t have a better answer for you. I think when I asked my chair he said it was program specific whether they would look at an app with 2 letters or not, so I decided not to chance it.

N3UR05UR930N - 26 August 2009 05:04 AM

I am in a somewhat similar position. I have one letter from an away subI from June from the chairman of that program, plus one letter from my home chairman. I wasn’t able to get a solid consensus on whether programs would actually look at my app with just two letters (starting Sept 1) and offer me interviews or not, so to play it safe I asked another faculty member at my home program to write a third letter, which will go with my app by Sept 1 (3 letters total).

I’m doing another away subI for Sept, and that letter will still get into ERAS in time (aiming for mid Oct), but for my Oct subI, there is no way that a letter will make it in time to make any difference, so I am not even planning on asking for one from that program.

Hope this helps. Sorry I don’t have a better answer for you. I think when I asked my chair he said it was program specific whether they would look at an app with 2 letters or not, so I decided not to chance it.

Is it possible to get 2 letters from home in June and then two letters from first away in July? That would equal 4 letters. On your second away in September it would then be possible to get another letter or two in time for mid-October. Does anyone know when the earliest interviews are sent out?

h.perowne - 16 August 2010 07:56 PM

Does anyone know when the earliest interviews are sent out?

http://uncleharvey.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/1379/P135/

Looks like (last year) a fair number of programs send out invites in Sept, the majority in Oct, and a few wait until the MSPE.

None of my letters are in yet, any advice on encouraging chairmen to get these things written and in?

None of my letters are in yet either. I sent a thank you email to my letter writers and they started sending them in.  A thank you email can remind them. But I still got interviews w/o the letters so dont stress too much they will come.

I’ve sent thank-you emails to the letter writers and also emailed secretaries asking if they needed additional materials… In the meantime just waiting. It’s frustrating when it seems everyone else is getting invites already, and I submitted 9/1!