late recommendations

[Guest]

Yeah, this is scaring me too. Just about all of my schools require three recommendation letters. My first one (Tufts) is due on January 10th. With the holiday break, I pray that my remaining professors check their emails by Monday. Only one of my selected three of my professors uploaded all his letters for each school so far. I sent a reminder email yesterday and will not hesitate to send another one next week.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Guest

[bgt28]

HELP!

 

Anybody know what Penn means by "brief grace period after application deadline"? My English PhD application was submitted well before the December 15th deadline, but one of my recommenders has as of this morning still not submitted the letter.

 

I'm safe for Columbia, Stanford, NYU, and Brown: three required, four registered. Same prof is the only one left. ("Safe")

 

I'm alright for Harvard, Yale, and Cornell, since all deadlines are after January 1st, so the standard two weeks will be my saving grace. (I don't know anymore). 

 

But like honestly, all these programs say it's my responsibility to make sure? Yeah it is, but part of my dossier for each recommender was a pdf of all eight deadlines. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not whining/pissed. Just TERRIFIED of being rejected from Penn, since it's one of my top programs.

 

[bgt28]

any and all posts, replies, and even private messages are deeply appreciated...supremely anxious 

[12345678900987654321]

Apparently, the school is quite used to receiving late letters from scrambling profs.

 

 

I work with scatterbrained profs all day, every day. Because of this, I also understand that some of them find it an absolute chore to upload a letter.

 

I'm going to design a research project to determine if grad school turns people helpless or if helpless people are attracted to grad school. After some of the applicants I've seen this season I'm going with the latter.

[bgt28]

I'm going to design a research project to determine if grad school turns people helpless or if helpless people are attracted to grad school. After some of the applicants I've seen this season I'm going with the latter.

i'm intrigued by this...i'm not certain of causality, but it seems as though this entire process sucks all the confidence from you and turns you into an anxious heap of psychobabble...I'm also intrigued by the "don't LOR writers remember how stressful it was when they were applicants?" question...I suppose at this point, after a reminder email or two, the best I can do is give them  until the end of the week to see if anything changes and email DGS/admissions directly as a last resort. 

 

I really appreciate your post, GradSecretary! Gave me a good laugh too 

[fancypants09]

i'm intrigued by this...i'm not certain of causality, but it seems as though this entire process sucks all the confidence from you and turns you into an anxious heap of psychobabble...I'm also intrigued by the "don't LOR writers remember how stressful it was when they were applicants?" question...I suppose at this point, after a reminder email or two, the best I can do is give them until the end of the week to see if anything changes and email DGS/admissions directly as a last resort.

I really appreciate your post, GradSecretary! Gave me a good laugh too

If this LOR writer has a secretary, it may help to follow up through him/her as well. If the LOR writer does not have a personal secretary, you may want to check with the secretary/admin for the department to which your LOR writer belongs. While it may be helpful for the ad comm and DGS at the schools to which you've applied to know what is going on, contacting the institution to which your LOR writer belongs will ensure that the letter gets submitted.

Two of my LOR writers, both of whom I've known for over a decade, still asked me about deadlines until the last minute. One is a super senior faculty who literally writes hundreds of letters per semester (on top of his research, teaching and service duties---serious respect for this man) and just wanted to double check; the second is a junior faculty with a lot of his own work he needed to push out in the fall. I reminded them several times before the crunch, but the truth of the matter is that it's easy even for those who are our greatest supporters and champions to slip up.

Edited January 7, 2015 by fancypants09

[bgt28]

If this LOR writer has a secretary, it may help to follow up through him/her as well. If the LOR writer does not have a personal secretary, you may want to check with the secretary/admin for the department to which your LOR writer belongs. While it may be helpful for the ad comm and DGS at the schools to which you've applied to know what is going on, contacting the institution to which your LOR writer belongs will ensure that the letter gets submitted.

Two of my LOR writers, both of whom I've known for over a decade, still asked me about deadlines until the last minute. One is a super senior faculty who literally writes hundreds of letters per semester (on top of his research, teaching and service duties---serious respect for this man) and just wanted to double check; the second is a junior faculty with a lot of his own work he needed to push out in the fall. I reminded them several times before the crunch, but the truth of the matter is that it's easy even for those who are our greatest supporters and champions to slip up.

Thanks so much fancypants! I definitely will heed your words. I'm sitting it out since I don't want to be super anxious about it at the moment. I've done a lot on my end, and considering my writer probably has grants and other academic commitments to support/apply for, he probably is swamped. Nevertheless, I won't hesitate to send another reminder within a week-long period if things haven't happened by Friday-Sun. Last resort for me is to contact the schools to explain, and I'd REALLY like to avoid that, only because it's so busy right now, it's not THAT overdue, and if I think about this any more I may have an aneurysm... xx

[fancypants09]

Thanks so much fancypants! I definitely will heed your words. I'm sitting it out since I don't want to be super anxious about it at the moment. I've done a lot on my end, and considering my writer probably has grants and other academic commitments to support/apply for, he probably is swamped. Nevertheless, I won't hesitate to send another reminder within a week-long period if things haven't happened by Friday-Sun. Last resort for me is to contact the schools to explain, and I'd REALLY like to avoid that, only because it's so busy right now, it's not THAT overdue, and if I think about this any more I may have an aneurysm... xx

One additional note: You may want to check to see that the LOR writer isn't mistaken in his/her belief of having submitted already. From what I understand, there could be some confusion on the LOR writer's end---s/he may not realize that additional buttons need to be clicked for the letter to actually go through the online system.

Hang in there! Big hugs.

[Appsitude]

Personal testimonial:

 

The submission date is flexible. One of my writers was 3 days late for all of my programs and I still got interviews everywhere. There is some degree of forgiveness there.

[rising_star]

.I'm also intrigued by the "don't LOR writers remember how stressful it was when they were applicants?" question...I suppose at this point, after a reminder email or two, the best I can do is give them  until the end of the week to see if anything changes and email DGS/admissions directly as a last resort. 

 

No, they don't remember how stressful it was. Most of them haven't been grad school applicants in a long time. And really, until you have a prof miss a deadline for a national fellowship/grant where letters cannot be late but for which you submitted everything (this has happened, including to me), you don't know what stress is. By contrast, grad school apps where they know they can submit late? Definitely less of a priority when time is crunched, which it is this time of year.

[bgt28]

No, they don't remember how stressful it was. Most of them haven't been grad school applicants in a long time. And really, until you have a prof miss a deadline for a national fellowship/grant where letters cannot be late but for which you submitted everything (this has happened, including to me), you don't know what stress is. By contrast, grad school apps where they know they can submit late? Definitely less of a priority when time is crunched, which it is this time of year.

Thanks so much for your response. Yeah, it's a rough time, and it's awkward since his taking his time with his grant proposals benefits us both, since I'd be a top choice to be his research aid during my semester off (December grad here). However, while it is immutably lower on the priority scale as compared to national grants, the LOR situation is proving to be personally very anxiety-provoking, if only for the fact that I'm visiting my parents outside the US and well, you know, dial-up/no access to paper mail...in any case, I do appreciate the perspective, and hope it will eventually sink in and help me adopt a more rational approach to mitigating my fear...i.e. follow suit with Fri-Sun notification hopes and re-send reminder and/or notify programs myself of the situation (as noted above). Thanks again, the conversation and support means everything to me, seriously! xx

[lydtn]

So I needed 3 references, and my last one hasnt sent it in, and the deadline was like, 15 min ago.  Maybe he forgot (i did remind him through emails) or he got confused with another school I'm applying to that has a different deadline.... This school only accepts things electronically but I do have a pdf of his letter for another school (which is probably identical to the one for this school) but I called earlier today and this lady said they dont take references by email... I dont know what to do.. Any advice? 

[bgt28]

I know it sounds silly, but breathe and wait...if your recommender is aware, they're probably taking time to write you a very strong letter, and do so at their own discretion, since they do have a better understanding about how the admissions/committee deadlines work and when roughly committees around the U.S. at least convene to review dossiers. Rest assured that the letter will most definitely be part of your file by the time the committee is ready to read it.

Now for Plan B: if the recommender doesn't respond to your reminder within a week of your initial email, call or email the DGS/ department you're applying to and explain the situation.bif that doesn't seem to help, give it another week and proceed to scrambling for a last-minute (but equally enthusiastic and indispensable) recommended. I was in this exact situation and by day 13 my recommender had my back and submitted all 8 letters. Best of luck always. Xx

[bgt28]

*but if

*recommender

Gradcafe mobile is weird

[Guest]

We should also remember that half of these schools do not even start reviewing application strictly on the deadline...for one of my schools, as long as you paid the app. fee before the deadline then you are locked in. I'm sure that they should be lenient in terms of getting late things. I'm dealing with a late mail-in transcript for on of my programs right now...10 days past the deadline.