When to let your referees know about your results?

[Blurry]

I was wondering when you ought to tell you referees about the results of your applications. Should you notify them of every decision as soon as they come in? Is it better to wait until you've heard from every school?

Many thanks.

[cunninlynguist]

Unless you're especially connected to a letter writer and frequent correspondence is typical, I'd wait until you've learned of all decisions. The best tactic would be to inform them when you've selected a program to attend. They'll be most excited about that and are of course most interested to learn where you'll be headed.

[tauren]

I agree, it may depend on how close you are with your letter writers. I am letting mine know about interviews (and hopefully acceptances) as they roll in, but they all wanted to be kept up to date.

[Blurry]

Thanks. I was leaning that way as well, but etiquette in academia is not always obvious.

[emmm]

I felt close enough to two of my letter writers to send frequent updates. My third letter writer was close friends with one of my other writers, so even though I did not feel as close to him, I figured I'd rather he heard updates from me directly, rather from our mutual friend, so I sent the updates to everyone. Because of the updates, I ended up forming a closer relationship with my third letter writer and getting nice, supportive emails in response during the interview/notification process (I included bad news in the updates as well). I now have one more person I would feel comfortable going to for help or advice in the future.

[msafiri]

When I applied to PhD programs, I told my MA committee members, who were also my recommenders, about results as they came in. They were quite proud of me and supportive when I traveled to visit PhD programs and when I needed to make a decision about where to go. That said, in some cases, they knew about my acceptances before I did, which was weird.