Cover Letters
Internship cover letters are one of the most important parts of your application! They 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.
Tailoring cover letters to each site is also one of the best opportunities applicants have to make a strong case for their candidacy. It helps readers understand how their site offerings will meet your training objectives and can help ensure you meet with preferred rotation faculty 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 and ask a colleague to proofread for a fresh set of eyes.
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