How to retract emails requesting LORs?

Question

I was planning on applying to med school. However I realized that I no longer wanted to apply this cycle. I am anxious to write an email to my LORs asking them to hold off on writing my letter of recommendations. I was wondering if something similar to the email written below would be acceptable. I plan on using the same LOR for the next cycle.

Hello ....

I appreciate you agreeing to write my letter of recommendation. However I realized Ihat I am not ready to apply and go to med school upon review of my current state of orders. Again, I do greatly appreciate your willingness to write my medical school application.

Thanks,

Answer 1

Looks basically good, there is no secret incantation for such things. However I would eliminate your last sentence (which is redundant) and add a sentence explaining that you plan to apply during the next cycle and will ask them to write your letter at that time. Also, note that “on review of my current state of orders” is not grammatical; instead, you could say simply “on reflection, I have decided…”

Finally, I would suggest making sure about this before you send (sleep on it, discuss with an advisor, …); it will not be easy to un-reverse this decision.

Answer 2

This sounds good.

However, in addition, if there is even the slightest change that a referee might have already put work into this (allegedly, there exist people who write recommention letter before the deadline), I would suggest to apologize for any work this might have already caused. Putting a sentence clearly stating that the letter is no longer required also does not hurt. (Currenty, your key message "You don't have to write this letter any more" is not contained in the letter - you are talking around it.)