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I am asking this question on behalf of my brother, who has recently submitted applications to several Physician Assistant programs around the U.S. For various reasons, his GPA is close to the minimum level; but he has strengths elsewhere. Therefore, he is worried that the schools may discard his application in the first round, without getting the full picture.

In order to improve his chances, he is considering to send an introduction email (or any sort of email) to the schools in order to introduce himself, so that they don't see him as Applicant # 3143.

Would this be a good idea? If so, what sort of email would be good to send?

Thank you very much.

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  • "He has strengths elsewhere": hopefully the information sent in the actual application reflects this? Also, what kind of information does he plan to send in such an email?
    – GoodDeeds
    Sep 9, 2020 at 21:00
  • @GoodDeeds His strengths are indeed reflected in the rest of the application; but he's worried that they will throw it out before reading further, just based on his GPA (which is close to the minimum required). He doesn't have a concrete plan of what to say in the email. He just wants to know if it's a good idea in general, and if so, what would be best to include.
    – Helix
    Sep 9, 2020 at 21:51
  • What exactly do you mean by sending mails to the 'schools'? Mailing potential supervisors may/may not work. Many supervisors strictly forbid such mails, while others encourage potential candidates to contact them if their research interests are aligned with them. Such faculty can be contacted personally. And always remember to send personal mails, not a generic, one-fits-all mail to all the faculty. That would surely get ignored.
    – Jihadi
    Sep 10, 2020 at 10:02

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I think that in most US places, such a letter is likely to be ignored. The application itself should be used to show such strengths, perhaps in a personal statement. But a university with a large number of applicants has fairly strict rules about addenda to applications. I doubt that it would improve the chances, but would, most likely, not harm the case, though it might if he seems desperate.

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