 Exit, like you do not need that recommendation letter because that might be like a red flag that you're not going to get a good recommendation letter from this person. What's up you guys, it's Adana, welcome back to my channel. For those of you who are new, thank you guys so much for joining me on this journey. Please take a look around if you like what you see, go ahead and subscribe and follow me on Instagram at adanathepa. So today I'm going to be talking about everything you need to know about recommendation letters. So I've been getting a lot of questions about this. Who do I ask to give me my recommendation letter? How far in advance should I ask for a recommendation letter? And although I'll be talking specifically with related to CASPA and that process, this can be a little bit taken, you know, kind of across the board with asking for recommendation letters from your professors or your boss or whoever it is that you're going to be asking. Let's get into it, right? So with respect to PAs and pre-PAs that are trying to get into PA school, schools are asking for about like anywhere from two to three recommendation letters, but CASPA now allows you to put up to five recommendation letters. And I don't really know how that works with respect to the schools. Like are they deciding to write, read all five of them? Are they just deciding to read the top three? But you have to take that into consideration when you're deciding how you're going to kind of rank your recommendation letters. So I suggest you get your top three people that you know are going to give you a good recommendation to be the top three recommendation letters that you actually insert into CASPA. Now with respect to CASPA themselves, this is not like a written recommendation letter that you have to now come and put into your boss's hand or your professor's hand and you're like, Hey, can you write me a recommendation letter and you get the letter and now you mail it off? No, that is not what they do. When you are asking for a recommendation letter through CASPA, what I suggest you do is you first go to that person, whoever it is that you're asking for the letter and say, Hi, you know, so it's going to be electronic. You give them all the information that they need first and foremost. So let them know that it's going to be electronic, that they're going to get an email with like a little link in there and they have to click on the link and then it will take them to a page where they have to set up their information to put in the recommendation. So there's going to be questions that are asked and then they're actually going to just kind of copy and paste or upload the recommendation letter that they may have already pre-wrote for you. So let them know that process because if you ask somebody like, you know, you go and you're like, Hey, it's three weeks till CASPA opens and you're like, I need a recommendation letter. Would you mind doing a recommendation letter for me? And they're like, sure. And they write you a handwritten recommendation letter. Well, that's no good for you. You know, and so if they're writing it and then they're trying to give it to you, no, that's that's not necessarily what you need. What you need is for them to have it written. They can have it in their Word document, but know that they're going to then have to copy and paste it into the form that CASPA sends them. So when is the best time to ask for a recommendation letter? Should I ask one month out? Should I ask two months out, three months out? And this question is a little bit tricky because it all depends on when you may have shadowed this person or the type of relationship that you've had with this person. If this is a professor, did you get a good grade in their class? Are you still on good terms with them? Are you still in their class or was it a class that you took in the fall semester? And now, you know, CASPA opens up at the end of April. So it's going to be months later. When should I ask? So initially what you should do is put the seed, like plant the seed, right? So put the seed in there and then you can go and water that seed a little bit later. So what you do is you say, I'm applying to PA school in the next few months. However long out it is. So if it's in three weeks, in a month, two months, whatever that may be, you let them know that you would need a recommendation letter and you would be honored if they could write a recommendation letter for you. If they're looking kind of shaky and stuff, exit. Like you do not need that recommendation letter because that might be like a red flag that you're not going to get a good recommendation letter from this person. And you are, you only want recommendation letters that are actually going to help you get into PA school. So what you do is you go ahead and you exit that person and you move on to the next person on your list. You let them know again, I will be applying to PA school in a couple months. I would be honored if you could write a recommendation letter for me. And if they say, sure, I'll do that, then you just give them the information on the process to be like, okay, so Casper opens up, which is our central application site. It will open up in April. So I'll just send you a reminder a month out and then again, maybe a few days prior to me sending the email through Casper because it's all electronic base and let them know that and you want to continue to like have this relationship, keep this relationship going. So if it was five months until you need the recommendation letter, you know, just reach out to them again in like three months, two months and let them know how you're doing, how things are going. Maybe you've done some extra shadowing. And again, you really appreciate that they are willing and able to do this recommendation letter for you. So that is how I suggest you go about doing it. Now, you don't want to get a recommendation letter from somebody that you haven't spoken to in five years. They don't know you. They don't know the type of person that you are now. And so they'll be talking about the type of person you were then. And maybe you weren't that great of a person then or maybe you were who knows. But the experiences that you've gotten now may outshadow some of the things that you did in the past. And so it's important to also have somebody that has known you throughout the course of your journey to PA school and have seen like the dedication in the things that you've done. And that goes with anything with any type of grad school or even if you're trying to get a recommendation letter for a job. You want somebody that can speak to not only your character but the progress and the perseverance that you've made, right? Okay. And so now after you've asked for that recommendation letter, CASPA opens. It's time to send the recommendation letter out. So what do you do? You always need to get their email because this is going to be one of the things that you're putting in your CASPA form when you're filling it out. So that CASPA can when you hit submit, CASPA can send this recommendation out to their email. So you're going to need their email. You're going to need like their contact information. So when you're asking for them to do the recommendation letter and just like, okay, well, it's all electronic based. Can I have your contact information? And I'd need your email and your phone number and get that information from them. Once CASPA opens, you put that information in and you send it off. So I always say once you've sent it off, now you send an email saying, hi, so CASPA, I filled out the application request form. I filled out the recommendation letter request form from CASPA. You should be getting an email within the next couple hours to couple days. Please be on the lookout for that. Once you've added that in, then you can say, I would really appreciate it if you can have that back to me within a week because I'm trying to apply on ex date. It's always important to give people a deadline. A week to two weeks I think is more than enough time for somebody to write a recommendation letter for you because things aren't always as important to others as they are to you. And so, yes, you're trying to get into this career. They may already be in it. They may be busy working. And so just give them a buffer on a couple of days on the length of time that they can actually complete this for you. And then you can always check back in a week. So if they have not completed it in seven days, then check back again. Give them a gentle reminder like, hey, just reaching out to see where you're at if you've actually sent the recommendation letter off. And you will know if they've sent it off because it comes up in your CASPA liaison page that a new recommendation letter has been submitted. So it's just kind of a little gentle reminder to say, hey, you haven't done what you're supposed to do. So please go ahead and do that. For schools that actually do have the whole paper application or paper recommendation letters, which some do, you do the same thing. You give them a week to two weeks and then you have them get a little gentle reminder by you if they have not done that in seven days and you wait. And so from that, your recommendation letters are in and you are good to go. You're ready to now go on to the next thing, whatever that may be, be it getting some shadowing hours or volunteer hours. But that is it. That is the whole process of asking for a recommendation letter and submitting your recommendation letter. All right. So if you have any other questions for me with respect to recommendation letters, please be sure to leave them in the comment section below. Go ahead and like this video, subscribe, and follow me on Instagram at adanathepa. Thank you guys so much for watching. I will talk to you guys next time. Bye.