5 Areas that Your Letter of Recommendation Has to Address

Without a doubt, the most important aspect of your physician assistant school application is the 3 letters of recommendation you need to have. The minimum is only 3 letters. These recommendation letters absolutely have to be from people, and the committee would prefer that these people writing your letter of recommendation be medical workers who have already worked with you as worked directly with patients. Should you choose to get one of your undergraduate school professors to write the letter it will be acceptable, but have no more than one professor write a letter.

What you should really do is get in contact with the PA school programs you’ve chosen to apply to and see what they consider acceptable references for your letter of recommendation. These people that you get to write your letters should people who are respected and admired in their own field. They should know your intentions for having them write a letter, your qualifications, you want people who have a high and favorable opinion of you, people who know your background and people who want you to be successful in PA school. People you ask to write your letter of recommendation may even feel honored that you even asked them in the first place.

It shows them that you respect them and their opinion which will make them delighted to write a letter for your physician assistant application. If get any feeling of hesitation from them and how they feel about you then reconsider having them write your letter because the fact of the matter is that these letters are a big part on the committee making a decision on who gets to the next stage which is the interview. I’m going to assume that you are applying using CASPA, and if you are then you can get the people you are having write your letter to send it electronically.

This is a great option because you will be able to oversee everything they are doing, and you’ll be able to know when they have finished writing the recommendation and when they have sent it. When they are doing it by email, make sure you tell your evaluator to check their spam folder in case they say that they couldn’t find the confirmation that they sent the letter. You can also use the paper option of mailing the forms that they need to fill out to them.

The recommendation form is in two parts and the first part of the form will have them fill out their opinions on your maturity level, the passion you have to be a physician assistant, your work ethic, your strengths and weaknesses, and your teamwork skills. The second part of the form is going to have them write a short essay about those details about you in greater detail. You have got to make sure that you tell your evaluator that you are applying to different PA programs so that they don’t address the letter to a specific person. You want them to start the letter off with “To whom it may concern” instead of “Dear Dr. Whitman.” In the end, make sure you choose who you want to write your letter of recommendation wisely.

Choose the people who you have worked alongside for a long time, and people who have seen you work at your very best and know you on a personal level. Try to get a physician assistant to write a letter of recommendation for you but still, someone who knows personally is better than someone who doesn’t.