Eight Questions About the Pre-Health “Committee Letter”

A convenient bundle of reference letters, the “committee letter” provides a comprehensive evaluation of the applicant’s background, competencies, and preparation for a desired health professional career in medicine or dentistry. Admissions offices like the convenience of having an applicant’s entire bundle of letters instead of waiting for individual letters because it expedites screening.

There are three types of “committee letter”:

1. Composite committee letter based on solicited letters of recommendation and interview: This composite letter consists of the committee evaluation of the applicant’s academic performance, resume, and other solicited information from the applicant, who has usually qualified by reaching thresholds of GPA and MCAT/DAT performance. Letters of recommendation are solicited by the applicant and sent to the committee during the winter term. Excerpts from these letters are included and referenced in the “composite letter,” and at least one committee member signs the document.

2. Committee letter packet: Admissions committees like to view the original solicited letters when available. The evaluation committee can thus write a short overview introducing the student and append the solicited letters of recommendation. Some advisors may select the “best” letters, while others opt to include all letters regardless of “quality” or “recommendation.”

3. Letter packet: Some institutions will receive solicited letters of recommendation and be a clearinghouse to deliver these letters as a bundle to the applicant’s schools. In this case, the advisor includes a cover sheet about the institution and past successes of the prehealth advising office or postbac program.

[Definitions modified from How to Work with Pre-Health Advisors and Committees – SDN ]

Since the late 1960s, committee letters have been a courtesy to validate students’ preparation for medical or dental school by discussing the rigor of their prehealth curriculum and relating how the applicant’s performance compares to past applicants admitted to a medical or dental school. Admissions officers felt student-solicited evaluators were too biased in their recommendations or bland – lacking valuable, objective insights.

Prehealth committees usually exist at smaller private institutions that handle several dozen medical/dental school applications yearly. Larger private institutions and special masters programs with staff or faculty support may also support a committee evaluation process for hundreds of students. Larger public or state universities may not have a full committee evaluation but can help compile “packets” for applicants that can substitute for a committee letter.

Medical and dental schools do not require committee letters, but such letters are “preferred.” A committee letter shows you built a strong support community in your program and completed a rigorous evaluation process similar to what you will experience in your future career. Furthermore, prehealth advisors and postbac program directors can address your strengths holistically as they have insight into the preprofessional competencies desired by medical and dental schools. However, with over 50 years of experience with committee letters, no empirical evidence shows a significant advantage to applicants with committee letters.

Most other health professions programs (optometry, physician assistant, pharmacy, physical therapy, veterinary medicine) do not expect or want committee letters. Applicants should contact the admissions teams to verify their preferences.

If you are applying to a special track such as a guaranteed admissions track (transitioning to professional school) or MD/PhD, consult the prehealth advisor and committee if they can tailor your committee letter for that purpose.

Each committee establishes eligibility criteria and a timeline, so advisees should frequently meet with their advisor/program director before applying. Some want a desirable GPA or MCAT/DAT score with a minimum number of course credits taken at their institution. Applicants should have completed most prerequisites to prepare for their admissions exam (MCAT or DAT) with a competitive science GPA (usually a 3.0 application GPA threshold, 60 credit-hour minimum). Candidates must release official results from their admissions exam to assure the prehealth committee of their application competitiveness. 

To begin the process, undergraduate advisees usually submit a “pre-application” by the end of the fall semester that asks for an inventory of key activities, a biography, a draft personal statement, and references (specific professors, professionals, and supervisors). Prehealth advisors will schedule a follow-up meeting to discuss any apparent gaps with the applicant’s profile. Many prehealth advising offices ask for reflections of their earlier undergraduate years (such as a “sophomore check-in”) showing evidence of pre-professional maturity and growth. Other advisors teach a prehealth “application prep” course the semester before applying, so the institutional letter can act as a student evaluation. If you’ve already graduated from an undergraduate program within the last three years, you can be eligible for a committee letter.

Applicants are asked to write reflections on their commitment to a career in the health professions and service to a diverse population of patients, including those with limited means or education. Research experience is also frequently discussed to demonstrate “capacity for improvement” or scholarly interests, which are desired for those candidates aspiring to specialize. Finally, applicants should identify preprofessional competencies that their activities address and show adequate development for a health professional career.

With the information from the pre-application, advisors’ notes from meetings, and solicited professor letters, the committee letter can provide an admissions committee insight into how the applicant has matured for a future as a health professional student. The committee documents a list of coursework sequences, such as prerequisites in chemistry and biochemistry, and courses that encourage community engagement. 

Admissions committees prefer students with experience in “flipped classrooms” or “service learning” with student-driven discussions that resemble their own curricula. By providing insight into how the program structures its academic and preprofessional experiences, the undergraduate committee letter can reveal the learning styles and individual advising that make graduates successful in medical or dental school. Similarly, postbac programs disclose how their students are engaged in small-group learning or research while preparing for mock clinical clerkship (“Shelf”) exams. 

Admissions committees also like to see strong relationships from close faculty mentoring. For liberal arts colleges, the committee letter process documents individualized support for the applicant. Because the prehealth committee usually includes science faculty from the biology and chemistry departments, the college’s professors have strongly bonded with the students from classes, advising sessions, or research experiences. The committee members work collegially in crafting their collective evaluation, drawing from their personal knowledge of each candidate’s backstory and college accomplishments. Ultimately, the committee champions the applicants and encourages them to continue improving while applying.

“Our Pre-Med Advisory Committee also reviews the submitted materials with an eye toward helping the student build a stronger application if they are ready, or advising them to improve their portfolio before applying,” adds Dr. Toni Trumbo-Bell, 2022 SDN Advisor of the Year recipient.

Postbac program committee letters also reveal the advising support that the applicant receives. Faculty advisors usually partner with students once an enrollment deposit is received, even if it is before formal coursework begins. The committee letter documents the plan the advisors developed to prepare students for the medical/dental schools to illustrate the candidate’s readiness for professional school.

As another experienced prehealth advisor comments, “Ultimately, the role of the committee letter is to help students achieve their goals by highlighting how hard you’ve worked to be fully prepared for the next stage of your journey. It is an act of advocacy culminating in the partnership between the advising team and the individual student. All successful partnerships require collaboration, which means you need to be purposeful about building that relationship with your advisors and making sure that you are utilizing the available resources to help yourself be successful. In most programs, students completely outnumber advisors, so it’s unlikely they are going to be able to chase you down and make sure you do everything you should. They are, however, available to help you on this journey. Take advantage of the resources you’ve been offered and talk to your advisor. Help us help you!”

Applicants often ask whether having a committee letter prevents them from soliciting letters from additional references. Often, a committee will not include letters from anyone not associated with the institution, such as supervisors one has worked with or shadowed. Applicants should pay close attention to admissions websites for “letter of recommendation requirements” to plan a strategy to include these additional letters.

AADSAS applicants, in particular, must be strategic about adding a letter to their application. By submitting a committee letter, applicants have only one additional opportunity to include a solicited letter of recommendation outside the committee letter. Work with the prehealth advisor or committee in advance to ensure this additional spot is used wisely, especially since most dental schools will not accept solicited letters of recommendation sent outside of AADSAS until after you are interviewed. Furthermore, they should work closely with the solicited reference to ensure their additional letter is punctually received.

Prehealth advisors and postbac program directors have a schedule in mind when committee letters are sent out, and most committee letters are delivered by September 1. Be sensitive to the concurrent responsibilities the committee members have. Among prehealth advisors who oversee committee letter processes, most write 50 or fewer letters each cycle in addition to other faculty responsibilities (teaching, advising, research, administration, and writing other students’ letters for graduate school or employment). Many other writers are dedicated advising staff. Faculty, staff, and other dedicated advisors take weeks to draft and approve all evaluation letters before they are delivered to the schools. Before sending the letters out to schools, the applicants are usually rated according to an evaluation rubric, and that rating is included in the packet.

Professional school admissions offices consider the information expected in a committee evaluation to be “critical” or “very important” in their applicant review, and a well-written institutional evaluation can be superior to any solicited letters that they read in other applications (2018 NAAHP national survey to admissions officers on committee letters). The individualized committee letter also helps marginalized applicants: premedical committee letters were borne from the social advocacy challenges from the mid-1960s, and admissions committees valued how letters identified qualified minority Black candidates (Grant 1968, Tolen 2021).

Successfully navigating the committee letter process reveals your ability to meet deadlines and act on feedback. While not having a full committee evaluation will not set back an applicant during file review, a handful of programs will ask applicants why they did not meet the eligibility criteria for a committee letter in secondary applications or interviews.

With dozens of committee letters to write, the prehealth advising team patiently frames your candidacy in the best possible light according to their rubrics and insights. The best committee letters give an added dimension that humanizes the application. As admissions committees want to judge applicants beyond just metrics (once you are deemed reasonable for admission), committee letters provide evidence of your mission fit: how you have already contributed to a diverse learning community on your home campus and how you intend to make a difference to society as a healthcare professional.