Letters from Advisors?

From time to time, students will ask if a Pre-Professional Health Careers Advisor will write a letter for them, whether in support of their application to a health professions program or for a scholarship, internship, fellowship, etc. While PPHC does all it can to champion and advocate for pre-health students at Texas Tech University, below are a few items to consider when requesting a letter from a PPHC Advisor:

• Our advisors are super helpful and nice but they may not be the right person to write a letter. Faculty - whether in prerequisite science courses, in a student's major, or otherwise - are often at the top of the list of the best people to write letters, and for many reasons. Not least among those reasons is the fact that students usually spend much more time each semester with their faculty than they do with an advisor. Pre-health students should consider each instructor in every course they take (and any other faculty members they might meet or work with) as potential letter writers.
• In addition to faculty, healthcare professionals are often cited as beneficial individuals from whom to request letters, particularly when the student has spent a meaningful amount of time shadowing, observing, volunteering, or working with that healthcare professional. All pre-health students should be engaging their professional fields of interest in consistent and diverse ways each and every semester, including summers. Students should always consider the healthcare professionals they meet in those settings as potential letter writers.
• If there has been an established advising relationship between a student and a PPHC Advisor or if the student had the Advisor as an instructor in a special PPHC section of RaiderReady (IS 1100), then perhaps a letter request is, in fact, appropriate and reasonable. However, PPHC Advisors will most likely not write a letter for a student if they have not met on at least three (3) separate occasions. Letters should be written by people who have had ample time and appropriate opportunities to accurately and effectively get to know the student.
• While there is no consensus on how much time one should give a letter writer, most advice on that question usually suggests at least one full week, and often much more than that. PPHC Advisors will not accept a letter request from a student without at least one full week to write the letter. Please plan accordingly.
• The best letters are not only written by people who know the student well, and are given enough time to be written, but they are also supported with informational documents like a student's resume and a statement of intent. Students may feel like they don't have much by way of experience to put on a resume, but that is often not the case. PPHC encourages all students to work with the University Career Center, the University Writing Center, and the important people in their lives to construct a working resume and a statement of intent. These can be very helpful for any letter writers when considering how best to respond to the request and how to write the best letter possible. PPHC Advisors will not accept a letter writing request if a student does not make these items available at least one week before the letter is needed.

Please contact your assigned PPHC Advisor if you have any questions about letters, letter writers, or how best to make such requests.