Letters of Recommendation

Applicants to TUSM are required to submit letters of recommendation from college faculty members, employers, volunteer activity supervisors, or others who are able to attest to the applicant's qualifications for medical school.

Applicants must submit a minimum of either:

Three individual letters (we do not specify the nature of the authors) that will arrive at the admissions office separately

A "package" of letters that will arrive from the applicant's undergraduate or post-baccalaureate school's premedical office or career-services office. The nature of the "package" varies greatly from school to school. Some schools write an official premedical committee letter and append individual letters; some schools write "composite" letters which refer to and quote individual letters; some schools simply collect, collate, and distribute individual letters. We accept all variations.

We accept letters of recommendation in two forms: hard-copy letters delivered via the U.S. Postal Service or PDF files delivered via the AMCAS Letter Service. Please use only one method of delivery - i.e. DO NOT send hard-copy letters if they are already being sent via the electronic AMCAS Letter Service. If your letters are being transmitted to our admission committee by your undergraduate advising office, that office may be using VirtualEvals which is fine. Once your letters are posted to VirtualEvals, they will be downloaded by AMCAS and made available to us. If you have a question about whether or not your advising office uses VirtualEvals, please contact your undergraduate advising office.

Please note, we DO NOT accept letters of recommendation via e-mail or fax.

Hard-copy letters of recommendation should be addressed to:

Tufts University School of Medicine
Office of Admissions
Recommendations Processing
136 Harrison Avenue
Boston, MA 02111

Applicants are advised to inform their authors that hard-copy letters of recommendation must be addressed completely and correctly as shown above in order to reach the admissions office. For example, omitting "Office of Admissions" or "School of Medicine" virtually guarantees that the letter will not reach its destination.

Applicants are required to submit official transcripts to AMCAS and do not need to submit additional transcripts to TUSM during the application process. (During the summer prior to enrollment, we will ask only the members of the entering class to submit transcripts directly to TUSM).