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Letter of Recommendation Service

OHLPA provides a centralized letter of recommendation service for University of Florida students applying to professional schools. Students may set up a file with the OHLPA and have their letters of evaluation sent to OHLPA for collection. OHLPA will then send these letters to professional schools which the student designates. This letter collection service allows for confidential transmittal to professional schools. Additionally, because the University of Florida does not have a pre-health professions committee, this collection service will allow letters to be officially transmitted from the University of Florida Office of Health & Legal Professions Advising.

You may fill out and print the application *pdf. After completion, bring pages 5 & 6 into the OHLPA Office Room 204 for processing. Please read all of the instructions and regulations so that you are aware of our policies. For more information on the OHLPA Letter of Recommendation Service, stop by Farrior Hall and go to the second floor of the Academic Advising Center, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Important Policies for our service
Who should use our service?
How many letters should I have?
When should I send them out?

Important Policies:

• You may have no more than 5 letters in your letter file. The only exception is for students applying to both Osteopathic and Allopathic schools, you may have a sixth letter from a D.O.  Letters to M.D. programs will receive the letters without the D.O. letter.  Letters to D.O. programs will receive the same five letters and the D.O. letter.  If applicants are applying ONLY to D.O. school then the maximum number of letters is five (the health care experience letter will be one from a D.O.)
  
  
• Your letters will NOT be sent until your letter package is complete. For instance, if you are expecting 4 letters, you may not request for your letters to be transmitted if only 3 have been received. If you request for your file to be transmitted while incomplete, any late letters will have to be sent by the letter writer to each of the schools.  We will not add any additional letters to your file or delete letters from your file after you request the transmission of your letters.
  
  
• ALL LETTERS in your active file will be sent to each school that you request.
  
  
• You must allow 2 weeks from the date of request for the letter to be mailed. It is YOUR responsibility to make sure your request has been made well before your deadlines. We process requests in the order received. Students may not request priority mailing.
  
  
• All letters must be accompanied by the OHLPA waiver form. This form is for pre-health applicants only and given to students when they submit the application to use the letter service.

  Please review additional regulations and instructions in the application above.

Who may use our service?

Applicants to Medical (allopathic and osteopathic), Dental, Optometry, Podiatry, Chiropractic, Pharmacy (non-PharmCAS), Veterinary (non-VMCAS schools), and Physician Assistant (non-CASPA) programs may use our service. We will send letters to health profession admissions, joint-degree programs, financial aid, and scholarship committees for health professions related programs.

Letters for dental applicants will be sent directly to the AADSAS application service. Letters will not be sent to the individual schools unless they are a non-AADSAS school.  Letters to AADSAS will be sent electronically from OHLPA.

Pharmacy applicants can ask their recommenders to send their letters directly to PharmCAS.  If applying to non-PharmCAS, schools the applicants may use the OHLPA Letter Service to transmit the letters to such schools.

Physician Assistant applicants can ask their recommenders to send their letters directly to CASPA.  If applying to non-CASPA schools the applicants may use the OHLPA Letter Service to transmit the letters to such schools. 

We do NOT send letters to graduate programs, post-bac programs, departments, or employers or another credential service. You will have to ask your recommenders to send their letters directly to those programs.  This service is strictly for those applying directly into the health profession programs of medicine, dentistry, podiatry, optometry, etc.

Recommendations for letter packages (please check the requirements for the specific schools you are applying to as requirements can change or vary):

Medical (Allopathic): 2 science faculty, 1 non-science faculty, 1 health-care experience, sometime a 5th letter is required (especially for those applying to USF)

*** University of Florida College of Medicine requires a peer letter from its applicants.  Keep in mind that this is not a common request from all medical schools and some schools may not necessarily consider a letter from a peer an appropriate character reference.  Thus it is not recommended you include the peer letter in your letter packet.  Instead, you should arrange to have the peer writer send his/her letter directly to the school requesting it.

Medical (Osteopathic): Same as above with the addition of a letter from a D.O.

Dentistry: 2 science faculty, 1 health-care experience, sometimes a 4th letter is required which would usually come from a non-science faculty (Letter of Recommendation matching forms from the ADEA website must be provided to OHLPA.)

Optometry: 2 science faculty, 1 health-care experience

Veterinary: 2 science faculty, 1 veterinary experience (in some cases it could be one science and 2 veterinary experience depending on your academic situation)

Chiropractic: Same as allopathic medicine

Podiatry: Same as allopathic medicine

Pharmacy: 2 science faculty, 1 health-care experience

Physician Assistant: 2 science faculty, 1 health-care experience (in some cases it could be one science and 2 health-care experience depending on your academic situation)

When should I send them?

Medical: You can request for your letters to be sent when you have received and completed secondary applications. You may NOT send your letters before this.

Dental: You may request to send your letters directly to AADSAS when you have completed the AADSAS application.  For non-AADSAS schools, there are no secondary applications, so request for your letters to be sent to each school upon completion of the individual applications.

Veterinary: You may request that your recommenders to send your letters to VMCAS at the same time you submit the application.  OHLPA does not send letters to VMCAS.

Optometry: There are no secondary applications, so request for your letters to be sent when you complete the applications to each optometry school.

Podiatry: There are no secondary applications, so request for your letters to be sent when you complete the applications to podiatry school.

Physician Assistant: You may request for the letters to be sent directly to CASPA when you complete the CASPA application for schools that participate in CASPA.  OHLPA does not send letters to CASPA. For non-CASPA schools, there are no secondary applications, so request for your letters to be sent at the same time you submit the application.

Chiropractic: There are no secondary applications, so request for your letters to be sent when you complete the applications to each chiropractic school.

Pharmacy: You may request for the letters to be sent directly to PharmCAS when you complete the PharmCAS application for  PharmCAS schools. OHLPA does not send letters to PharmCAS.  For non-PharmCAS schools, there are no seconday applications, so request for your letters to be sent to each school upon completion of the individual applications.

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