Oh NO!

[fenderpete]

Well, just when you think things are going alright.

Subject: missing letter

Dear fenderpete

I am writing to let you know that your file is missing a letter from

[the professor who insisted on doing paper rather than online recommendations]. It will be important

for our evaluation of your application for this letter to be submitted,

on line or in hard copy, as soon as possible.

[The Chair of my prospective Ivy League department]

Have now sent off an extremely worried email to the Grad Chair asking how best to get him the reference, and to the professor in question who is currently in the middle of leaving as head of my department to go and run a faculty overseas.

I'm now in severe panic mode, and asked the Grad Chair if I can submit an alternate reference from another professor somehow... If, that is I can get another professor to write me one at such horrifically short notice. The deadline for this program was 15th Dec and I sent the LOR letters out Airmail at the end of November and all the other unversities got them.

Is this going to hurt my chances badly or will they be understanding? :(

[katanianQ]

Oh man, Pete.. I'm sorry to hear that.

Of course I can't predict what the department chair will say.. what I would suggest is to email the chair immediately and explain the situation.. then try and contact your old professor overseas.. and while doing this, if you have another professor who you are close with and would understand the situation, ask them for a letter as well. That way, you're not screwed if your overseas prof goes MIA. Just try and cover all your bases..

I had a similar situation last year and because I didn't have a good backup, it set me back a year or so.. I hope it works out for you!

[fenderpete]

Thanks a lot for the sympathy I've done all of the above, and my absolutely legendary professor has agreed to be a last minute referee. I'm now waiting to hear back from the Grad Chair about it. If he gets back to me today and says my backup is OK I might just go ahead with that as I think he'll possibly even write me a better reference and I can hopefully get it sent in pre-weekend.

Trying to put a positive spin on this... Do you think it's at all significant that the Grad Chair himself got in touch with me, rather than just an admin person?

[adaptations]

fenderpete,

I know this process is extremelly stressful, but to be honest - this is not a big deal. They will let you submit a letter of rec. and your file will be evaluated just like everyone elses. The committees are used to this sort of thing.

Last year UCSD lost all of my application materials. Although they weren't entirely sure it was their fault, they essentially admitted they probably received them, but they weren't sure where they got put. I fedexed them a new package, and there were no issues.

Stressful - absolutely, but it won't hurt your chances.

GL

[fenderpete]

Do you think it means anything that it was the Grad Chair himself who got in touch, as I would have expected it to just be an admin person, or does that not necessarily mean anything?

[adaptations]

To be honest, I wouldn't read anything into it. You could speculate different scenerios, but there is no way to know.