Thank you letters - who to give

My opinion is that you should hand write thank you letters to anybody and everybody for as long as your hand holds up. Certainly I would write one to anybody who wrote a LOR for me. As for your home program director, it would probably be worth more to you to have a face-to-face meeting with him to convince him that you’re the right applicant for his program.

Just the information I wanted to hear. Thanks for your response.

You can't really go wrong with a sincere, hand written thank you letter... unless you say something weird, of course. If someone went out of their way to help you, you should go out of your way to thank them.

The first time around I didn't write any thank you letters and I didn't match. The second time I didn't write any and I matched.

From my experience being around residents and attendings a lot during my research year and hearing them talk about the match process constantly, is most faculty don't really care about thank you letters. Most faculty, especially chairmen and PDs, just think of it as part of the job. If you want to make a real impression, being seen as much as possible is much more effective than a thank you letter. Ie. conferences, grand rounds, etc at your home program, and rotating/second visits at other programs.

That being said, residents really seemed to be swayed by thank you letters. I saw several hung up on message boards and such in conference rooms and call rooms. Some complained when rotators didn't send any correspondence to follow up.

Of course, I also heard residents make fun of rotators who sent letters that kissed too much butt, so there's no hard and fast rule...

wow thats the first that I had ever heard of people writing a LOR to residents.

When writing a thank you letter for interviews or externships, who do you address the letter to?