AAMC Premed Competencies in a Rec Letter: Examples

AAMC Premed Competencies in a Rec Letter: Examples

There are 17 AAMC premed competencies. Our view: a strong letter covers three or four of them: the ones you actually watched the applicant show. A letter that names all 17 reads like the list, not the person. Write each one as an incident, and let the reader do the mapping.

This page gives the list, a table of which competencies each kind of writer can see, and constructed weak and strong sentences for ten of them. Once you have a draft, you can get a free Quick Review of your recommendation letter.

What we could not verify. The AAMC's own competencies page and its guidelines for letter writers returned HTTP 403 to our fetch on November 7, 2026. So this page quotes neither. The names below come from the University of Connecticut's pre-professional advising page, checked the same day. We could not confirm on the AAMC's site what, if anything, its letter-writer guidelines ask about the competencies.

The 17 competencies, as UConn lists them

UConn's Premed Competencies page says "The AAMC has identified 17 Premed Competencies for Entering Medical Students." and groups them in three sets:

Our arithmetic: 11 + 2 + 4 = 17.

Two names changed in 2026

UConn's page, quoting the AAMC, reports that in 2026 the AAMC renamed "cultural humility" to Self-Awareness and "cultural awareness" to Understanding Others, with new definitions. West Virginia University's pre-health professional competencies page, as captured on November 7, 2026, still lists "Cultural Awareness" and "Cultural Humility". If a premed office sends you a competency sheet, check which version it uses. If you name a competency at all, use the current name.

Pick by vantage: which competencies you can actually see

Our view: choose competencies by what your position let you observe, not by which ones sound most medical. This table is our assessment of what each writer usually sees. It is not an AAMC mapping.

The countercase: some writers see far more than their title suggests. A PI who ran a community health study may have watched the applicant with participants for a year. If you saw it, write it, whatever your role. And if the form you are filling in lists named criteria to rate, answer each one the form asks, then keep the letter itself to what you saw.

Constructed sentences, competency by competency

Constructed examples, written by us, not sentences from real recommendation letters. Context (invented): the applicant is "Sam", and every incident is made up to show the pattern. Each weak sentence names the competency as an adjective. Each strong sentence shows a behavior and lets the reader name it.

Commitment to Learning and Growth

• Weak: "Sam is always eager to learn and grow."
• Strong: "After I marked his first lab report down for unclear methods, he asked for a meeting, brought a rewritten section, and his next two reports needed no methods comments."

Understanding Others

• Weak: "Sam is culturally aware and respects everyone."
• Strong: "When a patient declined a blood draw for religious reasons, Sam asked the interpreter what the patient would accept, instead of repeating the request."

Self-Awareness

• Weak: "Sam is highly self-aware."
• Strong: "Two weeks into tutoring, Sam told me his explanations were working for the students who already knew the material and asked to watch me teach a session before his next one."

Empathy and Compassion

• Weak: "Sam is a deeply compassionate person."
• Strong: "A patient's daughter was crying in the hallway; Sam brought her to the family room, sat with her until the nurse came, and asked me afterward how we tell families about delays."

Ethical Responsibility to Self and Others

• Weak: "Sam has impeccable integrity."
• Strong: "Sam found that two of his own data points had been entered twice, told me the same day, and reran the analysis before our deadline."

Reliability and Dependability

• Weak: "Sam is reliable and hardworking."
• Strong: "In 18 months of Saturday shifts, Sam missed one, and he arranged his own cover a week ahead."

Resilience and Adaptability

• Weak: "Sam is resilient in the face of challenges."
• Strong: "When our survey lost its main recruitment site in March, Sam contacted three clinics, set up a new site in four weeks, and we finished on schedule."

Teamwork and Collaboration

• Weak: "Sam is a great team player."
• Strong: "Sam noticed that two volunteers were duplicating intake calls, built a shared sign-up sheet, and gave the lead role on it to the volunteer who had raised the problem."

Scientific Inquiry

• Weak: "Sam has a strong aptitude for research."
• Strong: "Sam questioned why our controls varied by day, proposed tracking room temperature, and the pattern he found changed how we run the assay."

Written Communication

• Weak: "Sam is an excellent writer."
• Strong: "Sam's seminar paper was the only one in a class of 40 that I asked permission to share with next year's students as a model."

Notice what the strong sentences share: a time or setting, an action the applicant took, and a result someone could check. None needs the competency's name.

How to build the letter from the list

1. List incidents first. Write down every specific thing you remember the applicant doing, with roughly when.
2. Tag each incident with the one competency it shows best.
3. Keep three or four, ideally from at least two of the three groups. Drop the ones that only repeat.
4. Write each as a short incident: situation, what the applicant did, what followed.
5. Name a competency once at most, after the evidence, if it helps the reader: "That is the resilience I would want in a first-year student."
6. Add a comparison with a count: "of the 30 students I have advised".
7. State what you did not see (next section), then close at the strength you mean.

How this fits the full structure of a letter is in the guide to writing a medical school letter of recommendation, and the strongest and weakest stock phrases are in med school rec letter phrases.

Writing the honest limit

A letter can say which competencies you could not observe. One sentence is enough:

I supervised Sam in the lab, not with patients, so I cannot speak to his clinical skills.

Constructed example, written by us, like the sentences above.

Our view: that sentence makes the rest of the letter more credible, because it shows you are reporting, not selling. Keep it to the gap that matters for your vantage. Do not list every competency you did not see.

An honest limit is not a hedge. "I did not see him with patients" states a fact about your vantage. "He is mostly reliable" is a judgment that sounds like a warning. The phrases guide shows more of the second kind to avoid.

Questions about competencies in letters

Should a letter of recommendation list the AAMC competencies?

No. Show three or four through incidents. The names add little, and a list of all 17 reads like a template. If a form asks you to rate named criteria, answer the form.

Which competencies should a physician focus on?

The ones the physician watched. In our table those are Empathy and Compassion, Interpersonal Skills, Oral Communication and Understanding Others. A letter from a doctor the applicant shadowed should say what shadowing let the physician see, and stop there.

Does a research PI need to cover the professional competencies?

One short paragraph helps, because the same file is read by medical school readers. The research competencies carry the letter; see MD-PhD letters from a PI.

Are the competency names the same as last year?

Not all of them. UConn's page reports that Self-Awareness and Understanding Others replaced the earlier "cultural humility" and "cultural awareness" in 2026. We could not open the AAMC's page to confirm the change at the source.

Does a DO school read competencies the same way?

UConn's page says the 17 competencies "are relevant for all health professions". For what DO schools add, see how to write a DO physician letter of recommendation. Supervisors outside academia can map shifts and audits to these competencies; see the employer or scribe-lead letter.

Get a free review of the letter

Get a free Quick Review of your recommendation letter against GradPilot's medical school letter of evaluation rubric. It reads for your vantage on the applicant, incidents instead of adjectives, comparisons a reader can check, and a closing endorsement whose strength is clear. Other letter types are on the recommendation letter review page, and the applicant's side of letters is in the medical school letters of recommendation strategy guide and the medical school essays hub.

Sources

Retrieved November 7, 2026.

• University of Connecticut Office of Pre-Professional Advising, The Premed Competencies: the 17 competency names and groups; the 2026 renaming as reported on that page; "relevant for all health professions".
• West Virginia University Pre-Health, Professional Competencies: earlier names "Cultural Awareness" and "Cultural Humility" still listed (page loaded on our first check on November 7, 2026; a second check later that day returned HTTP 403).
• Not quoted: the AAMC's Premed Competencies for Entering Medical Students page and Guidelines for Writing a Letter of Evaluation (students-residents.aamc.org) returned HTTP 403 on November 7, 2026. Nothing on this page is quoted from them.