Applicants often ask me about the protocol, advisability, and content of thank you notes and update letters. Here are some guidelines.

Thank You Notes

After leaving an interview, it may feel incomplete not to send a note to the school thanking them for the opportunity to interview. However, some admissions officers may gently discourage thank you notes at the end of interview day, which is their way of subtly signaling to you that they won’t make any difference to your candidacy. I advise sending interview notes to interviewers anyway, because it is simply polite to express your gratitude for their continued review of your application. The overworked admissions file handlers may just want to cut down on email from applicants, of course. Nevertheless, it can brighten the day of an interviewer to hear that you appreciated their voluntary contribution of time to your effort to get admitted. If the interviewer is a generation or more older than you, a hand-written note may feel more substantive to them than an email.

An exception is the MMI, when you really can’t and maybe even shouldn’t find out the identity of the interviewers. In that case, it’s good practice to recognize how much goes into a smooth MMI day and to thank the admissions staff, both the front desk people and the administrators (Director, Assistant Director).

Don’t send the same thank you letter to the committee and the interviewer because they are likely to both show up in your file, and your exercise will seem impersonal and may even be off-putting.

Additional Letters From You to the Interviewer

When you send letters to the interviewer, you keep the relationship going and growing with a person who may be your advocate during the admissions process. Your letters will encourage the interviewer to maintain interest in your acceptance. Likewise, a person who may have been under-wowed by you during your interview has a chance to learn more. These letters can be about specific topics you discussed, things you learned about them, your fit with the school, and your activities, experiences and interactions since the interview.

Letters From You to the Committee

A good update letter has substance and brevity. The content has to be about you and your fit with the medical school. If you think that something was misunderstood, or not duly noted in your interview, you can talk about it in your letter. Instead of stating directly “This did not get covered in the interview,” you can start with “I wanted to add that…”or just write a paragraph (3-5 sentences) about it.

The point of the update letter is that the people who read it will remember you, in a good way. The letter reader is usually an administrative person who decides to file it or send it to an admissions officer, or the head of the committee. Letters from you to the committee can clarify old matters and introduce new things. They can reiterate your commitment to the school. Sometimes applicants feel that they have nothing new to offer. This is usually not true. There are subtle changes and growth going on in you all the time. If you pay attention, you will see them. When you write about these ideas and observations from the context of your activities, experiences and interactions, you will be able to provide substantive information.

Supplementary Letters of Recommendation

The content of a letter of recommendation should add to what the committee already knows about you. These letters often cover a specific time span after you applied or interviewed. Use the AAMC letter of evaluation guidelines to target specific competencies that you have demonstrated or developed since you submitted your application. Give useful and well-organized material to your letter writer to make it easy for them to provide evidence of your qualities. Letters of recommendation can really help your candidacy.

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