Table I.

Criteria used to rank the NLORs and SLORs for the five content-based categories and ease of review.

	NLOR Score Classification		SLOR Score Classification
Five Content-Based Categories and Overall Ranking	7	Includes glowing statements such as “is one of the finest students to come from our school,” “is one of the best students I have ever worked with,” “richly deserves the honors awarded in the rotation,” or “receives my highest recommendation.	Guaranteed match.
	6	May include some honors grades, top 15-20%, near honors	Outstanding or very likely to match.
	5	Contains the obligatory “good fund of knowledge,” “punctual,” “hardworking,” “progressed well,” “should be an excellent candidate for fellowship training,” along with some superlatives.	Excellent.
	4	Contains mildly complimentary but non-committal language. Pleasantly describes an average resident and tries to put a good spin on the description.	Very good.
	3	May be completely neutral as if the writer has never met the resident, or have some subtle descriptions of the student’s averageness or contains slightly negative comments.	Good.
	2	Contains troublesome or negative comments with little or no balancing superlatives. Almost guarantees “no interview.”	Would not rank.
	1	Is hard to come by as most students do not ask someone who dislikes them or who has been disappointed in their performance to write them a letter of recommendation. All by itself guarantees “no interview.”	Would not rank, negative comment.
	0	Not in Letter	Not Applicable
Ease of Review Category	7	Minimal time required to review letter, writer’s comments addressed the areas of interest for the applicant in with concrete examples.
	6	Significantly less than average amount of time needed to interpret letter. Author could have been more concise in some places.
	5	Less than average amount of time needed to interpret letter.
	4	Average amount of time needed to review letter.
	3	More than average amount of time needed to interpret letter.
	2	Significantly more than average amount of time needed to interpret letter. Author failed to use concise examples.
	1	Extensive amount of time needed to interpret letter. Author’s comments about applicant were difficult to understand.