About the Professional Letter Service (PLS)Service

The PLS is a letter of recommendation service for UC Davis students and alumni who are applying to schools/programs in the health professions or business programs. PLS stores, copies and sends your recommendation letters to support your applications for admission to multiple professional schools. PLS does not send to master's programs or special master's post- baccalaureate programs. You may keep a maximum of eight letters in your file and have up to fifteen mailings/uploadings for $125. Your PLS file is good for three years after the year you open your file.

Letters of Recommendation
You will receive official letter of recommendation forms at your PLS file opening session and you may pick up additional forms at the PLS office. All letters of recommendation must be written on the official PLS form or on professional letterhead stationary which must be accompanied by the PLS form. Please inform your letter writers of this requirement. Our forms require original signatures from the applicant and the evaluator to prove the validity of the letter and to indicate whether or not the letter is confidential. Letters received without the original form and signature cannot be forwarded to the professional schools. PLS only sends letters to admissions offices of professional schools and programs. PLS does not send letters for jobs, internships, scholarships or fellowships.

All letters of recommendation should be mailed by the letter writer directly to:
Advising Services/Pre-Professional Advising
160 South Silo
University of California, Davis
One Shields Avenue
Davis, California 95616-8508

The PLS address is also printed on the PLS forms. You can reach PLS by phoning (530) 752-4100 or e-mailing plservice@ucdavis.edu

We do not accept letters that have been faxed or e-mailed, nor do we accept letters that have been hand carried by anyone other than the letter writers or their staff.

Numbers of Letters and From Whom
You are allowed a maximum of eight letters in your file. Letters of support should address the skills, character traits and attitudes that make a candidate especially well-suited to a particular profession. While you may include a letter from a community college instructor, we highly recommend that you also have at least one letter from a UC Davis professor and update your file with current letters. Letters from personal references (i.e. those who have not had direct experience with you in an academic, professional or work setting), no matter what their title/position, will not help and may even hurt your application. We will be discussing sources during the file opening, but if you have any questions concerning the suitability of letter sources after the file opening, please make an appointment to talk to an advisor. All of the letters in your file will be mailed to all of your schools unless you have letters to two different types of professional schools. You also have the option of retiring some of your letters before an application cycle. Once a letter is retired, it will remain retired.

The PLS file may be used for no more than two different types of professional schools/programs. For example, if you are applying to public health and dental schools, you may obtain recommendation letters for both of these programs and have them stored in the same file. If you are applying to more than two programs and would like to have recommendation letters stored, you will need to open another PLS file.

Dental, pharmacy, public health, veterinary, and law schools have centralized application services with their own recommendation letter service systems that hold and mail letters. Thus you may not need to use the PLS service if you are only applying to one of these professions.

Health Professions Schools: It is strongly recommended that you obtain letters from one or two science professors who have taught at a 4-year institution plus any other professors, employers, or supervisors who have observed you in research, academic, health care and community service settings. Some health professions require one letter from a professional in that field whom you have observed/worked with (e.g. from a dentist or pharmacist). A total of 4 – 6 letters is recommended.

MBA Programs: It is strongly recommended that you obtain two or three letters. Because most people who apply for an MBA program work for several years after undergraduate school, the employers’ letters are significant to their applications. However, it is still a good idea to obtain a strong academic letter before you leave school.

Records
PLS will keep a record of the schools we send your letters to and the dates the letters were mailed. However, it is important for you to keep your own record; this will help you avoid errors and confusion. Some schools will acknowledge receipt of your letters, others will not. If at any time a school should write to you stating that it has not received letters that your records and our records indicate were mailed, we will mail them again for you, if you provide us with another envelope. Do not provide us with a second envelope unless you are sure that the first set of letters was not received. It can take two to four weeks for a school to process their mail.

Reapplicants
If it is necessary for you to reapply, schools will want a current evaluation of you. We recommend that you have new (i.e. current) letters of recommendation added to your file. If your file has expired, it will be necessary for you to open up a new file and pay the new current fee.

Length of PLS Letter File Service
Your PLS file is good for three years after the year you open your file. If you open your file in the calendar year 2008, your file will remain active through 2011. Expired files are purged and destroyed. It is your responsibility to keep track of when your file expires; we will not contact you. If you have not used your letters to apply to schools and would like to extend your PLS file service, a fee of $25 per year is required to keep it active beyond the initial expiration date. The extension year starts on your file's expiration date. Please notify us no later than one month prior to your file's expiration date if you plan to renew it.

Please note that all PLS letter service policies and procedures are subject to change.

Current Address Telephone Number and e-mail Address
It is imperative that you keep PLS informed about your current local address, telephone numbers and email address. During the months that you will be preparing your application, it may be necessary to contact you to update information and/or let you know of any recent developments.

Please note: We prefer to communicate directly with you about your PLS letter file. Often when a third person is involved, messages can be delayed or fail to be delivered. Also, a third person can misunderstand and therefore, misinform you. Please contact us personally when you need questions answered. We are open Monday through Friday, 9 am-12 pm and 1-4 pm. Our e-mail is: plservice@ucdavis.edu.

Fees (2008)
To defray expenses for maintaining files, reproducing letters and preparing letter packets for mailing, it is necessary to require a user fee. This fee Is not refundable. The regular fee schedule is:

$125 To establish, maintain a file, and to copy and mail letter packets for up to 15 mailings.

$5 To prepare and mail each packet beyond the 15 included in the basic fee.

$25 To maintain a file each year beyond the original active period if there have been no mailings or uploadings.

To open your file, first read the PLS handout, then pay the $125 fee at the Cashier's Office (1st floor, Dutton Hall) and bring the receipt back to the PLS Office. You will then be able to sign up to attend a one-hour PLS file opening session. At that time you will receive the recommendation forms. The PLS office must have a receipt from the Cashier's Office for the correct amount for each of these transactions. Do not send money directly to PLS.

When you sign up for the PLS service you must also sign up for the appropriate list serv, prehealth- events.

Policies are subject to change without notice.