Due dates

[schoolpsych_hopeful]

When giving your materials to your LOR writers, do you give them the actual deadline? Or do you give them a date that's a few days before? I'm leaning towards giving them some wiggle room, and saying the apps are due 10ish days before they actually are. Anyone else doing this?

[newms]

I've heard of people doing this before - asking the LoR to send them in around 2 weeks before the deadline. What you need to remember though, is that for online applications, they will get an email requesting the LoR from the automated system and that email will have the actual deadline in it. So you have to word your request carefully so as to not make it seem like you are tricking them into thinking that the deadline is earlier than it is. Also, sometimes the automated email from the online application gives them a deadline that is later than the applicant's deadline. Perhaps what you can do is simply ask them to submit the LoR a week or so earlier than the deadline to not risk anything going wrong at the deadline?

[schoolpsych_hopeful]

I didn't even think of that! Hmm, well I think I'm more concerned about the letters that need to be mailed in. Maybe I'll give the actual date for online letters, and fib a bit for the ones that will be mailed.

Thanks for the advice!

[ScreamingHairyArmadillo]

I told all of my recommenders the hard deadlines, but insisted (as pleasantly as I could) that I wanted all of my materials in by such-and-such date (which was about 2 weeks before the first hard deadline). At least in my situation, coming across as organized helped keep everyone else on schedule, even my professor renowned for turning everything in late.

[rising_star]

You might want to consider that there could be other people that the prof is writing LORs for applying to some of the same schools you are. Obviously, the actual deadlines would be the same so it might seem weird if you gave them deadlines that were earlier than the actual deadline. Plus, there are plenty of profs that have written letters for that program before and thus are familiar with the deadlines.

[fuzzylogician]

You might want to consider that there could be other people that the prof is writing LORs for applying to some of the same schools you are. Obviously, the actual deadlines would be the same so it might seem weird if you gave them deadlines that were earlier than the actual deadline. Plus, there are plenty of profs that have written letters for that program before and thus are familiar with the deadlines.

or they could check the university website themselves.

Don't lie. Tell your writers that want to mail a complete packet so you'll need their letter X days before the actual deadline in order to mail everything on time.