Faculty members may ask you to draft your own letter of recommendation. Some may explain that they're too busy. Others may use your letter as a launching point for their own, after reviewing the accomplishments and traits that you highlight. After you provide a letter, some faculty members will draft their own, others will edit it, and others may simply sign the letter.

We urge extreme caution in the case of letters that are essentially written by applicants and submitted without editing. While some applicants view this as a golden opportunity, it's not.  The ethics of writing your own letter are heavily debated, and some program directors and interviewers consider it unethical. Those involved in the residency selection process have considerable experience reviewing letters, and can often recognize when a letter has been written by an applicant. Second, because of your inexperience writing these letters, you may end up writing one that simply rehashes the content included elsewhere in your application. Submitting this type of letter robs you of an opportunity to strengthen your application.

However, if your attending asks you to draft a letter that will serve to highlight or focus aspects of your experience and personality for their own letter, we can help. When providing such a draft, you need to maximize the impact of every sentence. You need to highlight specific traits and accomplishments, in a greater depth or from a different angle than what's included in your CV. We have considerable experience editing letters of recommendation, and we can ensure that your draft letter highlights the type of information that program directors seek.