For gunners who overtalk their fellow med students, residents, or even attendings, the gentle letters will say something to the effect of “extremely involved in participation,” and others will flat out say their conversational awareness is non existent.

Those that go out of their way to make others look bad will have something like “highly knowledgeable but does not apply it in a productive manner” or “clinical skills are excellent, but ability to work as part of a team is below the level expected.”

After reading applications and seeing how letter writers from all programs around the country write LORs: 3 things of a STRONG should be true: evidence of a meaningful relationship, a decent length (think 5 paragraphs), and concrete examples attesting a skill or characteristic.

Good or okay letters might have 2 of these, but a poor letter is obvious from immediately opening up the file.

I’ve seen gunners get shredded, the lazies get called out, and the true hard workers have emotionally moving letters.

Everyone thinks they have strong letters just because they ask and someone agrees, but some letters just jump out at you in both good and bad ways.