Cover Letters
Starting your application process with a preliminary cover letter draft is a great option. The reason is that this document should contain a clear statement of your internship training goals and your long-term career goals. Ironing these out early will help you organize your thoughts and remain consistent as you sift through lots of sites, rotations, supervisors, and mentors. It also provides a template to share with your letter writers so they have a clear understanding of your objectives and helps you map out your essays in a cohesive manner.
Once the foundational elements are written, tailoring cover letters to each site is one of the best opportunities applicants have to make a strong case for their candidacy. It’s work intensive, but essential to help reviewers understand how their program will meet your training objectives. In larger programs, it also helps reviewers identify which training faculty you should meet with during your interview day!
- State 3-4 internship training goals and 1 long-term career goal.
- Limit to 2 pages, single spaced, 12 point font.
- Use your institution’s letterhead.
- Consider justifying text.
- Name specific tracks, rotations & mentoring faculty of interest.
- Consider bolding, underlining, or italicizing the names of said tracks, rotations, & faculty.
- Use active rather than passive voice.
- If you have a personal motivation for applying to a certain site (i.e., proximity to family, access to recreational activities…), mention it briefly in your summary paragraph.
- Proofread. More than once. Ask someone else to proofread at least once.
An optional template:
- Intro paragraph (4-6 lines):
- Thank you for reviewing my application to X site
- I am interested in X and Y tracks.
- My prior training in XYZ and professional values focused on ABC are closely aligned with the opportunities provided by the [Name] internship training program.
- Optional to state long term goal here or in summary paragraph
- Paragraph 2 (8-15 lines):
- General info about your clinical, research, and other professional interests
- More specific statement(s) about alignment between your interests and goals and training program offerings
- Training Goals (15-20 lines)
- State 3-4 goals, which can be bulleted
- Elaborate a few sentences on each
- Brief summary paragraph