ERAS permits applicants to re-designate letters for individual programs prior to their deadline, so that a new letter can be used in exchange for another letter that is officially omitted, the latter of which can still be used by programs at their discretion.
From your experience, do orthopaedic programs typically perceive and approve of a letter re-designation as an applicant's genuine attempt to improve his or her candidacy? Or do programs perceive and frown upon this as a way for applicants to submit more letters than requested?
Honestly, this is not something that is even on my radar (can't speak for other programs but doubt that it's really on theirs either?!). Of all the things you guys have to worry about with this process I don't believe this is one to put on your list --
Not an attending, but thought I'd chime in. I did this with shifting around a couple letters as I, like everyone else, overanalyzed the process to death. I had no intention of just slipping more letters in, just wanted to play with the mix of which ones I sent where. The programs had already downloaded my letters throughout and obviously the de-assigned ones didn't disappear from the pages in my files. I was able to see my file at a couple programs and they had like 5 letters and no one seemed to care. I think as Dr. Levine says, they probably don't even register this as a thought as they pour through stacks of applicant files.
