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Signed electronically medical school letter

what's up you guys rex here in today's video i'll be covering update letters as part of a medical school application cycle i'll be talking about what is an update letter should you be sending one if you should what should it look like when should you be sending it and i'll also briefly be touching on thank you notes after an interview and i'll finish it up so stay tuned to the end with my update letter that ultimately turned into an ivy league acceptance [Music] but first in case you knew here a little bit about me my name is rex and i had way more success than i ever imagined or think i probably deserve in my medical school application cycle i'm currently a first year student at duke university and i just want to sort of give back and share everything i learned so you can do as good or better than me in your application cycle i've got a ton more videos check them out on my channel about applying to medical school and what my life in medical school is like if you want to see my future uploads make sure you subscribe hit the notification bell all that kind of stuff but here we go into the video so what is an update letter i'm using an update letter as sort of an umbrella term for three things you'll probably hear about the first is a true update letter and so this is basically telling medical schools about something pertinent to your application that has changed since you first submitted your primaries and secondaries so this could be you got some research published or you started a new job whatever it might be it's something that you're updating hey medical schools this is something new in my life that i think makes me look like a better applicant check it out and these can be sent at any point during the application cycle probably most commonly they're sort of sent when you're still waiting to get an interview invite but they can be sent also after an interview or after a waitlist if you have something relevant but this is like typically the first letter you would send to a medical school after you have submitted your primary and secondary and you're waiting for like six or ten weeks and haven't heard back that's about the time people might recommend sending an update letter the next letter is a letter of interest and so this is very similar to an update letter but it doesn't have to necessarily be in the context of check out this new thing it's sort of just like hey school i still love you i want to go to you kind of thing i haven't forgotten about you i hope you haven't forgotten about me this can be after you've already sent an update letter or it can basically be your first letter that's like an update letter you just don't have anything to update a school on but a lot of times this might be sent after you've interviewed it's not as common to be sent before you have an interview invite but you definitely can as well and it also can be sent like after you have your interview and you maybe have gotten wait listed or something like that that's also an appropriate time to be sending a letter of interest and the last general type of letter is a letter of intent and so this is something you should only be sending to one school and it is saying hey if you accept me i promise i will go to you you are my first choice i haven't gotten into your school yet but if i do i am coming and so this is most commonly sent after an interview and so it could be right after an interview is also very common after you've been waitlisted and it sort of holds more weight if you already have acceptances at different places and this is sort of like an end of the application cycle letter it's most commonly sort of the last letter you would send to a school all right so first of all should you send one the first thing to check to find that answer is see the school's policy some schools will accept letters some schools won't some schools will have a policy where they only accept letters before you've interviewed other schools will accept letters only after you've interviewed there's all kinds of different policies and it's specific to the school so make sure you check the school's website to see their specific policies you definitely don't want to be sending a letter when they're expressly saying please do not send us update letters we do not look at them that's not really a good look it probably wouldn't actually hurt you because it would never make its way to the admissions committee but in any chance don't take that chance don't send it and so when it comes to sending all of these letters i think there's sort of two schools of thought and both of them sort of have their dangers and so the first school of thought is to like not leave anything up to chance even if it has a one percent chance of helping your application why wouldn't you do it you don't want to ever have any regrets do everything you can go all out this is probably the slightly better way to go but also you don't want to be overly obsessive and constantly be thinking is every little thing i do is this gonna be the reason i don't get accepted i better do that i better do this i make sure but what if i so don't get too obsessive with that on the other side of the coin is there's a lot of things that are sort of encouraged and people obsess about that you probably shouldn't really worry about and it's probably healthy to have a little bit of an attitude of like all right if i don't get accepted for this reason i didn't want to go there anyway and so that can be as silly as like some people stress about like oh my gosh my shirt wasn't ironed on interview day like if you don't get accepted to a school because your shirt wasn't ironed that's not a school you want to go to anyway and so that is somewhat of an attitude some people have with update letters of we're like all right if i didn't send this beautiful love letter to a school saying i really want to go to your school like do i want to go there anyway and so i think there's a happy medium i would say overall go ahead send it it's worth it if it's something you're overly stressing about it's probably okay if you don't send it i don't have any stats or numbers i just have my personal experience that i sent a lot of update letters i only ended up getting one acceptance out of it so in my experience which is very much limited they didn't make a huge difference i've heard for some people they do make a difference but that's something we can't know every admissions committee is different every school is different i'm sure it helps a ton at some schools i'm sure it doesn't do anything at other schools and so the follow-up to that is should you send more than one letter and i think go ahead as long as you check the school's policies and make sure that it's acceptable some schools do have a limit that you only can send like two update letters or one update letter it depends on the school but i would just recommend to generally have them spaced out so if you want to send a update letter maybe in november or october go for it and if you want to follow it up with another letter of interest at winter break if you still haven't heard back and then maybe you go and interview there and it's great and you really love it and then you want to follow up and send a letter of intent because you know that now this is your number one choice now that you've interviewed there go for it that i think that's absolutely acceptable you don't want to however be sending like a letter a week or something crazy that looks overly desperate and is not a good look that probably just shows impatience and like makes you come off as frustrated and annoying and also understand that these people that are on an admissions committee they already have so much stuff that they have to read on every applicant they are doing you a massive favor if they read your letter at all and so be respectful of their time understand that they are going like out of their way to try and help you by giving you this extra shot of showing yourself to the school of actually reading your update letter so understand that if you're thinking about sending a ton of updates all right how do you send a letter once again lame answer but check with the school so some schools will have a secondary portal which is just a website and they'll specifically have a place to upload it to this website and then they will look at it hopefully maybe maybe not i think some schools i had last year even specifically said we don't promise that these will be read but if you want to go ahead and so that's one way you can send an update letter the other common way is usually just email i wouldn't say this is something you need to actually print out put in an envelope and send by snail mail typically an email is perfectly professional and acceptable if you are sending it as an email i would recommend to send it as an attached pdf don't use a word document that's just life advice don't send stuff as a word document and don't actually put it in the body of the email just in the subject of the email just have your name your application id and something like update letter and just have a quick reading refer them to the attachment and sincerely your name applicant id that kind of stuff and who you send this to can depend on the school sometimes they'll give you a direction i would recommend either sending it directly to the dean of admissions or if there is a general like admissions email and address it to like the admissions committee that's fine too all right so what should it look like so first of all it should be in a professional letter format go ahead like this is a professional letter someone better than me came up with that a long time ago i'm sure but look it up and i'm sure there's all kinds of formats use something professional i would say to stay away from the overly formal like to whom it may concern and address it like dear admissions committee or dear blank dean of admissions something like that is a little bit more informal but i think it's the right balance of being formal without being impersonal and then when you close it i think something just like sincerely or thank you is fine and make sure you include your applicant id along with your full name in the closing so that they know that it's you i think it's a nice touch if you can sign it electronically or you print it sign it and then scan it and send it that also makes it a little bit more personal and it's still equally professional and a great thing to do all right so going through what they should look like so the first type is that update letter and so there is sort of a little bit two schools of thoughts of some people say only send an update letter if it's super significant other people are like go ahead send an update letter even if you don't have a ton of updates i would say both are perfectly acceptable if you want to hold off because you think maybe oh i do have this paper that's going to get published and that's going to be super cool and awesome or i'm starting this new job or i just got this award whatever it may be or you think that's coming up probably wait until that plays out but if it doesn't i think it's perfectly acceptable sort of to send like an end of the semester update letter that just sort of briefly summarizes stuff you continue to do throughout the semester maybe share your grades for that semester in the courses just simple stuff like that it doesn't have to be too extravagant if sending an update letter is something you want to do don't let thinking oh i haven't cured cancer yet so i don't have that in my update don't let that hold you back from sending a letter but my little bit of caution with an update letter is you don't want it to be too much about you you don't want to come across as like oh my gosh i am so amazing i just did this awesome thing how haven't you accepted me already remember this is like a huge favor they're doing to you if they even read this at all so be very brief and respectful of their time and also this is somewhat more about the school than it is about you and you should still include some stuff about oh i'm really interested in your school still because x y and z thank you for your consideration i really appreciate you even taking the time to read this that kind of stuff don't make it all right this is like another resume i'm sending you and i'm only going to talk about myself for three and a half pages absolutely one page brief a little bit about your update a little bit thanking them a little bit about the school that kind of stuff and so a letter of interest is kind of like the update letter just without any update and so this is really much more about the school than it is about you the parts where it should talk about you is talking about how you feel you are an awesome fit for the school and so that's really easy to do like after an interview where you can be like oh my gosh that interview was even better than i ever imagined i love the faculty i love the students i met everything i just vibed with it this was awesome i am super interested in your school that being said this is sort of more commonly used maybe before you get that interview invite and trying to get that interview invite and so this you might have something more along the lines of like hey so i've interviewed at some other schools but they're definitely missing out on this key aspect i'm looking for which i know your school has there's definitely a balance there if you don't want it to be too like comparing you don't want it to come across as like desperate of like hey i haven't gotten any acceptances yet obviously i'm interested in you because i'll go anywhere at this point which even if that's like i totally feel for you that is totally like my attitude when i was going through the whole application cycle basically but also you don't want to be on the other end of the spectrum of like hello i have seven acceptances i am so important and special but even with these seven acceptances i am still interested in you feel privileged so you want to have a balance you want to be genuine you want to be yourself and say that like hey you know maybe i have had a couple interviews maybe i have had an acceptance already but i am very much interested in your school i look forward to knowing more about it i look forward to interviewing and from everything i know and i still continue to research your school and i get more and more excited about it from this stuff that i learned and this other thing that's really unique to your curriculum or this that is unique to your hospital all of those different things i'm really interested in your school and i would love the opportunity to interview at your school or if it's after any of you like wow that was awesome i really look forward to potentially attending your school and so lastly the letter of intent so this is the biggest thing please send it only to one school that's just sort of like an ethical thing like being a doctor is a career where ethics very much matter in my opinion and so start practicing good ethics as soon as possible don't tell five different schools that i guarantee if i get accepted to you i will attend your school because what if you get accepted all five now you have to lie to one of them and that's just not good and i'm sure there is like a very slim chance of it happening but i don't know what goes on behind the magical black box of medical school admissions where schools might talk to each other and so that's something to be careful about that if somehow two admissions committee members from different schools happen to be alumni from the same medical school and they attend a reunion then they talk about applicants i don't know what goes on that's total ridiculous scenario but that you wouldn't want it don't take that risk that two schools find out that you were sending letters of intent to the same school so when you send this letter it's probably something you don't want to send before you even interviewed or before you've gotten an interview invite because you don't really know the school enough to say that i would definitely say only send this either after an interview or it's really strong to send this after you've been waitlisted at a school where you've known about the school you've researched it and then you actually got to be there in person or i guess if you zoom nowadays or you got to like meet other medical students that are first years and you met some of the faculty and it was just everything you were looking for in a medical school and you can list very specific reasons why and why those reasons relate to you and you know like this is where i want to go this is where i feel i'm meant to be if you give me an acceptance i will not hold back i am instantly going to your school sign me up i'm ready so just some final takeaways for all update letters in general the first thing is make it genuine and be honest don't tell a school that you love this aspect about them if you don't if you feel like you can't really say something that you genuinely love about a school maybe think about if you should even be sending an update letter maybe it's not a school you want to go to hopefully you thought about all this stuff beforehand in your application cycle and so you really are only applying to schools you would be absolutely thrilled to attend in each school you can specifically list reasons why like yes this school has this about it and i love that and so it should be something you can write genuine and honestly about saying wow this school really fits with me because of x y and z make it genuine make it honest that's going to be the most impactful letter and so along with that is make it specific schools can tell if you copy and paste your letter from seven different schools and everyone is talking about oh i really like your school because it has rigorous academics because it has the opportunity to meet with great doctors and your medical school also does awesome research all right that's 99 of medical schools in the country they can see that they want to see something that is like making you a good fit that's the biggest thing medical schools want is they want an applicant that fits with them and they want to be a school that fits with the applicant so have it specific that is a two-way street that should be unique to each different school perhaps in different ways but at the least it should be unique to you that you can't think of anything super unique about the school start by thinking of things that are unique to you as an applicant and how those apply to this specific medical school that will at least carry some weight and so then the admissions committee can at least say all right this is a unique letter i haven't read 50 million of these already i'm glad i took the time out of my busy life to read this and it tells me a little bit more about this applicant i'm going to consider them more strongly potentially and so i said i'd briefly touch on thank you letters i just want to say that like thank you letters don't treat them as an update letter if you are going to send a thank you letter i think it's good to actually have like a printed out paper thank you card hand write it sign it yourself put it in the mail send it off address it specifically to your interviewer and you don't want to write a book of something you would write in an update letter of talking about all this different stuff make it very personal and brief like thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to interview me it was really great you were a great interviewer a lot of time during your interviews medical school interviewers will like share life advice with you and so if you remember any of that go ahead and share like oh thank you so much for your advice about this i really have benefited from that in some way whatever you want to write but keep it brief keep it simple also do you need to send a thank you letter this is sort of in the general idea i was talking about with update letters of where like you don't want to give schools any reason to reject you so if they're expecting it go ahead and send it although i would say with thank you letters they're kind of getting a little bit less popular as far as at least in my experience on all the interviews i went a lot of the deans were saying like oh you know those thank you letters like yeah we'll send them to the interviewer but a lot of times the interviewer they're just writing notes and sending it off to admissions committee they don't have any impact on you getting accepted or not or like yes you can send us stuff but we promise it will make no impact on your admissions whatsoever so i think these are less likely to impact your admissions chance and so there also is the other end of like all right if i get rejected because i didn't send a thank you letter like that's the dumbest reason ever probably don't really want to go to that school anyway so i would say overall do send thank you letters but if i'm being honest i never sent one to any school so that was maybe maybe me being lazy maybe me just like being scared and giving myself an out and saying that like oh you know i wanted to have an excuse of why i didn't get accepted anywhere if i didn't get accepted anywhere so maybe that was a little bit of me just being scared who knows or probably me just being lazy mail's hard i grew up in a generation that i email stuff it's hard to get a stamp i don't even know where to get a stamp i do know where to get a stamp but it's hard to do and also last thing that like especially for mmis i think that's kind of over the top to be sending thank you letters that you'd have to track down like 10 different interviewers they're not likely trying to jot down notes such that they like actually remember you they're just giving you a score and the scores are getting average and so that's really over the top if you're sending update letters to everyone who did an mmi with you if you are interviewing at a school that only does traditional interviews and it's like one really long interview that's more likely to be beneficial to do so go ahead and send that if you think it's worth your time and you're not too busy and you don't want to take any chances go for it all right so update letters in my application cycle i ended up sending eight update letters and i sent them all over winter break so they're right here and so really this didn't get me much i ultimately was only accepted or got an interview invite or got anything back any response that was positive from one of these schools and so i ended up getting an interview at dartmouth so i sent the update letter on december 15th and then subsequently got the interview invite on january 7th did it have an impact maybe maybe not it's hard to say because i can't tell you if the other seven letters i sent helped maybe a little bit and it still wasn't enough to push me towards an interview invite so in my experience it didn't help a ton didn't hurt that being said i don't really think i sent very good update letters so i'm gonna share with you my update letter that got me an acceptance to dartmouth ultimately but i'm sort of showing you this because it is the one that i guess was successful that doesn't mean i think it's very good it sort of is a little bit of me being desperate at this time in my application where this was going into winter break i really was hoping to have one acceptance that was like my goal and my like one of my christmas present i wanted to be an acceptance to medical school i didn't have any at this point a little bit of it was i was worried and also my mentor who had been on admissions committee for a long time was sort of worried about my application as far as it was a little bit weird of an application of where i had like really high stats but was sort of potentially really weak in the rest of my application but also if you read it a different way i was really strong in my application and so it's very sort of like school specific because it wasn't super cookie cutter of where you could interpret it this way or that way so we were sort of worried that some schools may not be giving me an interview because they want to have a good like retention rate as far as what amount of acceptances they send versus how many people actually take those acceptances and go to the school versus end up responding with a rejection to the school so we were sort of worried that like maybe a lot of schools were thinking i would already have an acceptance or wouldn't ever go to their school so it was sort of written that way i kind of think that probably wasn't a good idea i guess it worked with dartmouth who knows so i'll read through the letter now and we'll tear it apart together but also let me know in the comments down below if i'm being harsh on myself or maybe you think it's good or maybe you agree that it's really terrible or maybe you think it's terrible for reasons i don't think it's terrible so i started off the letter dear blank admissions dean i think i was the admissions dean and admissions committee my name is blank amc iba blank all that kind of stuff i am waiting to express my continued interest in the opportunity to attend geesel school of medicine and to provide an update to my transcript now that my fall semester has finished so this was sort of an update letter sort of just a letter of interest because at this point i didn't really have much to update so i just updated on my transcript i finished the semester with an a in all of my classes list my classes blah blah blah blah this maintains my cumulative gpa at 4.0 blah blah blah blah so i feel like it's kind of braggy or not very good that i said like cumulative gpa at 4.0 like yes they know i had a high gpa that's not like the unique thing of my application that would make me stand out but i sort of felt like i had to update on something even if it wasn't that significant so that is something worth updating i think it'd be a lot better to send that update if it was like hey i did great this last semester and that bumped my gpa a little bit like totally recommend doing that it didn't really change anything my way or if you have a semester that's one of your worst semesters and it brought your gpa down probably not worth sending that as part of an update letter and so then i continue at this point in my application journey i have interviewed at two schools and have not yet received an acceptance i've yet to find a school that i believe i am a good fit for and is a good fit for me i i'm hopeful that dartmouth is that school giselle school of medicine remains one of my top choices and i'm excited to still have the opportunity to interview with you so that i may learn more about dartmouth as i anticipate its smaller closer knit community being a great fit for me so eh that's like a decent paragraph i don't know i don't really like it that much um so i i think i overall liked that i was honest about saying hey i've interviewed at two schools and have not yet received an acceptance i think being honest is something that's sort of underrated and not as commonly used being transparent like that in medical school applications duke i would say like find a good fit like duke was a good fit and was a great fit so i don't really like that i said that um because i definitely felt duke was a good fit right away um that being said i do like that i mentioned the smaller close-knit community because that was definitely something different from the schools that i was really applying to that i thought i would really like about dartmouth and i went to visit dartmouth and interview there i absolutely loved it like it was definitely the best community and i felt the most at home there and i probably would have loved the campus and enjoyed it so much it just logistically wasn't the right choice for me and so that's why i didn't go there but i absolutely love dartmouth 10 out of 10 recommend love the school if you get accepted there take it seriously awesome school shout out to dartmouth and then my last little thing i hope this letter may assist the committee's decision process and i look forward to hearing when my application has been reviewed i think that was maybe a little bit like snarky i look forward to hearing when my application has been reviewed that maybe comes off as a little bit impatient i probably should have worded that better but you know it worked i guess who knows so take that with a grain of salt don't necessarily copy that and then i finished off sincerely name application id all right so that is my longer than i expected video on update letters i do not think i'm an expert on update letters at least as far as i had a 12 and a half percent acceptance rate from the update letters i sent which maybe is good maybe is not maybe that's average i don't really know how much update letters actually help or hurt but they're a thing they're part of the process they're sort of part of the tradition maybe they're not gonna be a thing 10 years from now who knows if you have any questions comments or concerns i'd love to hear about them down below as always make sure to subscribe hit the notification bell if you want to see any more of my future uploads also take a look through my channel i have tons more videos on the application process like the video if you liked the video dislike the video if you disliked the video and until next time don't be ordinary go be great