Deleted: "its not necessarily your school but any med student a given faculty member has worked with. For example if you ask for a ltter from a faculty member who wworks with your school and visiting students as well you will be compared against all of them. it helps take the subjectivity out of letters ( a little) bc in theory youre not just "great" and "good with patients" and "Knowledgable" which arguably everyone will say unless a med student incorrectly chooses their writer. Rather the letters will be along thelines of "this student is easily the best medical student I have worked with in ___ area" or "Of the __ students I work with in a given year, this student consistently performed as the top __% or fraction etc." It is supposed to give programs a more accurate read of students capabilities . For DERM specifically you can look at it https://www.dermatologyprofessors.org/files/2013%20Annual%20Meeting/DERMATOLOGY_SLOR.pdf , a letter from a writer who works with a lot of students and ranks you as a high percent will be better for your application than a local doc or faculty member from your school who sees only 1-2 student at a time. "

<<<< Makes sense. Pretty interesting change

at the webinar today they actually said preferably from your home program

<<<<yeah but like the problem with this is then your home program essentially becomes the most important rotation, more important than aways...I just wish they made it optional this year. It's a big change that we only got clarity on at the end

why was this deleted

<<<< Makes sense. Pretty interesting change >> this change is huge