Are 4 LOR's bad?

[Vkap]

I'm in a slight dilemma for who to request LOR's from.

 

So far, I have 1 PA who I've shadowed, and a past employer (healthcare related, but not a hands-on patient role). I'm very confident they both can write me a very strong letter.

 

 

I was also planning on asking a medical director at my company who can also write a very strong letter. Though some schools require a professor. I do have a professor I worked with very closely, he would definitely be ok with submitting one for me even though I graduated college over 3 years ago. However, I have heard from multiple students that he uses a generic copy/paste LOR for all his students, which can possibly lack in substance.

 

 

Should I ask for all 4 anyways? 

 

Or pick between the medical director and my professor?

 

 

Thank you!!

[DiggySRNA]

There are no reasons why more LORs would be seen as bad.

[Allegro]

It's only bad if you find out later you needed that 4th slot for a requirement one of your other programs had that wasn't covered by what you already entered. The 5 slots exist in case your programs have conflicting requirements for the 2 or 3 they actually are looking for. Otherwise, its not a bad thing, but keep in mind a lot of programs will only read the ones they asked for.

[Vkap]

My concern was that say for example a school requires one from a PA, one from a supervisor, and one from a professor. I was under the impression that they may not look at all 4 LOR's, they may only look at a combination of 3 out of the 4, and if one happens to not be the ones they require, that it would hurt my application. 

 

I guess a more precise question would be, do programs read every letter to acknowledge that I have fulfilled their requirement for the source?

[Guest HanSolo]

I am sure they will find what they need if it is there. They understand you are applying to many programs, and different programs have different requirements. 

[Allegro]

The letter writers have to identify themselves, their relationship to you, and their occupation as part of filling out their letter, so the school does not have to read the letter itself to determine if the LOR fulfills the requirements they asked for. Some schools may read all LORs, but many schools will pull out the ones they are looking for and only read those. The additional ones aren't detrimental at all, they will likely assume you needed to submit them for a different program. I just wouldn't suggest submitting extra for the heck of it unless you've determined you don't actually need the extra ones for other programs.

[PA-C-to-be]

I submitted 5 since I had two PAs I was shadowing at the time and needed to submit at least 4 (only needed 1 from a PA/MD/DO/NP) to meet all the requirements for all my programs. Some schools told me they'd read everything I sent even though they only required 3 so I gave them everything I could. Meet your minimums but whatever extra good words you can get on your application are always a good idea in my opinion.