Step 8. Request to Send Recommendations to Schools

HPPLC will NOT automatically send your letters where they need to go! Your signed authorization is required to do that. After you have systematically checked, and made sure that the appropriate recommendations are actually in your file, you should then complete the Form to Request Recommendations to be Sent. This form can be hand delivered, mailed, or faxed to the HPPLC office. When mailing or faxing requests, please telephone the office to be sure that the request has been received and the recommendations are in your file. Requests to send letters can only be made for letters actually in your file at the time the request is made. HPPLC cannot hold your request pending the future receipt of a letter! Please read the section on Priority Deadlines for Composite Letters for Applicants to Medical and Dental Schools and plan accordingly.

Most medical schools, and many optometry schools, now strongly prefer to receive letters of recommendation through an electronic transmittal system called VirtualEvals, which HPPLC uses to send your letters to medical schools. The VirtualEvals system allows HPPLC to send letters to the schools much faster and more securely than postal mail, which is to your advantage as an applicant. Please read the information in the appendix on VirtualEvals, as the use of this system requires applicants to make some careful decisions at the start of the application process about which letters they would like to send to the schools where they are applying.

Please write a current address or telephone number on your request, so we can get in touch with you if we need to. To preserve your legal rights and for our records, telephone and email requests to send out letters will not be accepted. Fill out one form for each school, giving the complete name and address of the school and specifying which recommendations (by writers’ names) you want sent, even when requesting a faculty composite. HPPLC suggests that you save money and send all recommendations needed by a particular school at the same time. No recommendations can be sent without your signed request.

After you leave campus, if you mail or fax your requests to our office, be aware that you will be billed through the Office of the Bursar at Indiana University for any additional charges as they are incurred. It would be beneficial for you to email HPPLC at recserve@indiana.edu or phone our office at 812.855.1873 to check the status of your recommendation file before mailing requests.

In order to ensure that your recommendations are in your file and that your fee payment is in order, please expect to spend a few extra minutes when you bring your request to the Center while the front desk staff checks your file.

Remember: all letters remain the property of HPPLC and cannot be released to students at any time, under any circumstances.

Knowing Which Reommendations to Send from a Closed File

The law requires that we preserve the confidentiality of letters from a closed file. Therefore, the advisors at the Center cannot tell you if any recommendation, in whole or in part, is positive or negative, “good” or “bad”. They may tell you, however, which recommendations contain information appropriate to your application; i.e., the recommender has commented on relevant characteristics and is an appropriate recommender. They may advise you on whether your file contains the appropriate number and type of recommendations for the schools to which you are applying.In light of the confidentiality requirement, you should select your recommenders carefully and only choose those who you think will write strong letters of support. Therefore, when asking for a letter, consider asking your recommenders something on the order of: “Would you feel comfortable writing a strong letter of recommendation?” or “Do you think my performance in class warrants a strong letter of recommendation?”

Faculty Composite

(The IU version of the premedical or predental "committee letter")

Most medical schools and some dental schools offer the option of sending individual letters of recommendation or sending a premedical/predental committee letter. Indiana University Bloomington satisfies the predental/premedical committee alternative by creating the predental/premedical composite. A composite is a compilation of all your faculty recommendations into one document.

ALL academic letters in the student’s file are included in a composite evaluation. One recommender’s comments follow another in the composite. Each commentary is identified. There is no editing and all comments of the recommenders are included. This format sometimes provides a better overview of the applicant’s abilities, interests, and commitments because it reflects the perspectives of more individuals. Some of the individual letters of recommendation obtained from science classes at large universities tend to be general and brief, but in the composite a greater number of perspectives is provided to fill out a fuller picture of the applicant.

The applicant needs enough letters to make the composite worthwhile (the minimum number of letters for a composite is three; it can be helpful to have at least four to seven letters) and not so many as to have comments become redundant. At the student’s request personal recommendations may be included in the packet in addition to the faculty composite when mailed. We suggest consulting with a premed/predental advisor.

If you would like HPPLC to prepare a composite letter for you, please submit the “Request for a Faculty Composite Letter” to the HPPLC office. Please read the section on Priority Deadlines for Composite Letters for Applicants to Medical and Dental Schools and plan accordingly.

Sending Your Recommendations: the Time Required

HPPLC will duplicate your recommendations and forward them with a cover letter to each of the schools you select. Special priority deadlines pertain to composite letters for medical and dental school applicants each year. Please read the section on Priority Deadlines for Composite Letters for Applicants to Medical and Dental Schools below. Applicants to other professional schools should allow at least TEN (10) working days for processing. Allowing extra time helps to meet deadlines. Be sure that you don't wait until the last minute to ask for your recommendations to be processed, or you may miss a deadline. Be aware that the period from October 1 to March 1 is our peak time for recommendation requests. The three weeks prior to winter break are especially hectic. Please plan accordingly!

PRIORITY DEADLINE FOR FACULTY COMPOSITE LETTERS: June 15

All applicants to medical and dental schools should have their letter of recommendation files complete by June 15 if they would like to request that HPPLC prepare a faculty composite letter for them for the upcoming application cycle (faculty composite letters are highly recommended for applicants to medical and dental schools).

In order to guarantee that your faculty composite will be prepared and ready to be sent by the following July 31, applicants must have their letter of recommendation files complete by the prior June 15. This means that all of your letters must be received by the HPPLC Recommendation Service on or before June 15. Applicants who meet this deadline and who submit a “Request for Faculty Composite” form to HPPLC by June 15, are guaranteed to have their faculty composites sent by the following July 31.

Requests for faculty composites to be sent will be processed in the order received.

It is highly recommended that all applicants, including those who choose to send individual letters rather than a faculty composite letter, have their letter of recommendation files complete by June 15, and submit requests for their letters to be sent immediately upon receiving a request from a school for letters of recommendation.

Applicants whose files are not complete by June 15, or who submit a “Request for Faculty Composite” form after June 15 will have their faculty composites processed after August 1 of that year.

Note that having a faculty composite sent to a school is a two-step process, involving the submission of two forms:

Request that the recommendation service create a faculty composite letter for you; and then
Request that the letter be sent.

ALL STUDENTS PLEASE REMEMBER:

1. Do not submit requests to send recommendations until the actual letter has been confirmed as received in the file. Your entire request is void and will not be processed if ANY evaluation that you request is not in the file—if this is the case nothing will be sent and you will not be notified. You must check the status of your file prior to making the request. If you do not receive a timely confirmation from this office that your material has been sent you must check to confirm that your request has been processed.

2. We only send recommendations to professional schools and specific scholarship internship or research addresses. We do not send recommendations to individuals or personal addresses.

3. A copy of the scholarship announcement and a telephone number of the organization must accompany any off-campus scholarship requests.

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