struggling with being patient

[powerlifterty16]

It seems that some of the professors  i asked to write letters flat out ignored my emails(which was a surprise). I did however get 4 professors to reply, with one sending me a letter the same day. The others told me they would write a letter, and then i sent them my SOP and transcripts, and they dont reply back....I dont know how long to give them, and if they take too long  i dont know how to politely remind them.

[Cesare]

Did you send them a request through your applications? 

[powerlifterty16]

no i am doing it through email.

[fuzzylogician]

It seems that some of the professors  i asked to write letters flat out ignored my emails(which was a surprise). I did however get 4 professors to reply, with one sending me a letter the same day. The others told me they would write a letter, and then i sent them my SOP and transcripts, and they dont reply back....I dont know how long to give them, and if they take too long  i dont know how to politely remind them.

 

How many people did you ask? You had some people reply AND you have four letters? That sounds like a lot. 

 

What reply do you expect to an email with your transcript and SOP? When did you send it, how long have you waited? Maybe it's a good idea for you to establish a reminder routine with them so you can send them an email every X days (or X days before the deadline) to remind them? 

[powerlifterty16]

I messaged a lot of professors.  I got 4 REPLIES, one sent me a letter, and 3 more told me they were going to write me letters and to send a SOP and my transcripts, but after I did that they never emailed me back saying when the letters will be ready. Some just said ''thanks for sending the stuff so fast''.

Even though I only have 4 professors willing to write eltters, these professors are exactly what  i need because i got good grades with them, and was in a few of their classes, and they are psych professors which is where im going.

[fuzzylogician]

You're missing my point, 4 letters is a lot. Most people don't have that many people who can write them strong letters, so you're in good shape (if the letters can talk about your research ability/potential, not just about grades from classes). LORs normally are not sent to the students at all: when you fill out the online application for the schools you're applying to, you will be asked to provide email addresses and contact information for your recommenders. They will then be sent a prompt from the school and will be able to upload a letter to the application system directly. In many cases, a LOR that has been seen by the student is given less weight because it's assumed that it's not truly confidential -- in some cases such a letter will even be discarded. I'm guessing your professors are now waiting to get the prompts from you so they can finish things on their end, but at no point will they just send the letter to you. 

[powerlifterty16]

You're missing my point, 4 letters is a lot. Most people don't have that many people who can write them strong letters, so you're in good shape (if the letters can talk about your research ability/potential, not just about grades from classes). LORs normally are not sent to the students at all: when you fill out the online application for the schools you're applying to, you will be asked to provide email addresses and contact information for your recommenders. They will then be sent a prompt from the school and will be able to upload a letter to the application system directly. In many cases, a LOR that has been seen by the student is given less weight because it's assumed that it's not truly confidential -- in some cases such a letter will even be discarded. I'm guessing your professors are now waiting to get the prompts from you so they can finish things on their end, but at no point will they just send the letter to you. 

No offense, but I think you wrre missing the point. I know 4 letters is a lot, but my point is that I dont have 4 letters now. Yes, I know there is a prompt to send the letters, but I obviouly need to email the teachers and find out if they are willing to write the letters and send them  what they need too. I havent seen these professorsd for years.

When I submit my application I was planning on telling the professor who sent me the letter to upload it through the prompt anyway.

[powerlifterty16]

I feel so rushed. I had a bad test experience with the gre, and wrote a complaint to ets, and it says they can take 4-6 weeks to reply....I need to retake the test, and am trying to get a retest free of charge because of some issues, yet my deadline is december 15th! it also takes solong to get the scores from ets.

[Cesare]

I am confused. In your initial post it seemed that these 4 professors agreed and then you gave them info to help them write letters, but now you are saying that you are still waiting for them to confirm whether they are sending letters. Which stage are you at?

Stages:

1a - ask Prof
1b - Prof replies and agrees
2- Send request through application
3 - wait for them to send letter through application system (and remind them about it the last week of november and again in dec.)

[fuzzylogician]

Yes -- I was under the impression that you were past stage 1. You say they agreed to write you letters and even thanked you for sending the SOP and other info. So, now they are waiting for you to perform stage 2, or else you are in stage 3. If that's the case, you have no reason to expect another email from them right now. You just need to wait for them to upload their letter, which they will hopefully do soon. BUT -- many professors only do this close to the deadline or even after it, because they know that the submission deadline is really only for the students and professors can often submit letters a few days/weeks later and still be in time (=before the adcom meets to make decisions). Precisely for this eventuality, I proposed setting up a reminder system with your recommenders in my previous post, so you can know they haven't forgotten about you. If your deadlines are in December, they may not be writing and submitting letters on your behalf for several weeks to come. This is very common, and at this point I think you have nothing to worry about. I would caution against emailing too often and starting to pressure your professors too soon, they still have a long time to write the letter at this point.

[powerlifterty16]

I am confused. In your initial post it seemed that these 4 professors agreed and then you gave them info to help them write letters, but now you are saying that you are still waiting for them to confirm whether they are sending letters. Which stage are you at?

Stages:

1a - ask Prof

1b - Prof replies and agrees

2- Send request through application

3 - wait for them to send letter through application system (and remind them about it the last week of november and again in dec.)

I honestlly dont know what stage. I emailed the professors, they responded asking for the transcripts/SOP, and then didnt reply after that. none said they were waiting for a prompt from the application, and one sent the letter right to me lol. What sucks is that there ae only 3 email prompts on the application website, so going that route  ican only get 3.

I emailed the professors again, including the one who sent me the eltter(told him to submit it via the prompt after  isubmit my app)

problem is, im not submitting my app until november, bc  i need to retake gre.

[fuzzylogician]

So you are in stage 2. Your professors have agreed to write letters on your behalf and they are waiting to get the prompt, which will only happen after you submit the app. This is all fine and expected. Most students will not be submitting their apps this early in the season. Professors normally don't write letters this early, either. Next month or in December, you'll send them the prompts and they will upload the letters. There is no reason for them to email you at the moment, or for you to email them. After you submit your apps next month, it'll be a good time to send a reminder email to tell your recommmender that you've submitted the apps and that they should have therefore received a prompt and to let you know if they haven't. Offer again to send them any materials that might help them write a strong letter on your behalf. 

 

Also, only submitting three letters is the norm for most apps. You can contact the schools to ask if they will read a fourth letter (many will), and if that's possible you may be able to ask the fourth professor to send the letter via email to the schools (ask them how to submit the letter if you can't add the fourth professor to the website). 

 

Good luck! 

[powerlifterty16]

Well I hope you are right that they are waiting for the prompt. Obviously the first teacher who sent me the letter had no idea about it.....I don't think im going to get into the program im applying for anyway though so it doesnt really matter lol.

[powerlifterty16]

It seems that some of the professors  i asked to write letters flat out ignored my emails(which was a surprise). I did however get 4 professors to reply, with one sending me a letter the same day. The others told me they would write a letter, and then i sent them my SOP and transcripts, and they dont reply back....I dont know how long to give them, and if they take too long  i dont know how to politely remind them.

just got a reply from one of the teachers  iemailed yesterday. she said this(only an excerpt of full message)

''Usually, schools have a link where they want the letter uploaded. Incidentally, they usually ask you to waive your right to see the letter. You don't have to, but it looks better if you do.''

 

Is it true that I should waive my right? Right now on my application I checked NOT to waive my right. Is she only saying this bc she is giving me a bad review?

[Cesare]

just got a reply from one of the teachers  iemailed yesterday. she said this(only an excerpt of full message)

''Usually, schools have a link where they want the letter uploaded. Incidentally, they usually ask you to waive your right to see the letter. You don't have to, but it looks better if you do.''

 

Is it true that I should waive my right? Right now on my application I checked NOT to waive my right. Is she only saying this bc she is giving me a bad review?

Not necessarily. Waiving your right is the norm. Professors (whether they write something good or bad) often feel more comfortable doing things in anonymity. Unfortunately, this is something you have to get used to in academia. 

[powerlifterty16]

i updated my application to waive my right. i did a lot of eesearch on it, and seems this an important part of the application process. It shows that you have trust in people and also gives more weight to your reccomendations because it shows that the professors can write freely without worrying about me seeing it

 

If i ever want to see the reccomendations, what is a polite way to ask the professors? i dont want to be nosy?

[Cesare]

I don't think there is a polite way to ask. You should probably avoid it if you ever want to ask these people for a letter again. Plus, they are likely to refuse. Just avoid the awkwardness. 

[powerlifterty16]

I don't think there is a polite way to ask. You should probably avoid it if you ever want to ask these people for a letter again. Plus, they are likely to refuse. Just avoid the awkwardness. 

what's strange is that one of the professors emailed me the letter he wrote, although i told him ill be sending him a prompt from the application next month and he agreed to post it there.

 

I more so meant ask them to see the eltter in a year or so.

[repentwalpurgis]

Well I hope you are right that they are waiting for the prompt. Obviously the first teacher who sent me the letter had no idea about it.....I don't think im going to get into the program im applying for anyway though so it doesnt really matter lol.

No offense, but I think you are going about this very poorly.  Of COURSE they are waiting for the prompt - if you don't have the exact information (ahem, deadlines, websites, info on the schools, whatever) they need to submit the letter to begin with, why would they just start writing a letter anyway?  A small amount of professors might just write a letter out of nowhere, but more often than not, they are incredibly busy!  They already send dozens on dozens of emails a day, and replying back to an email that promises some kind of information in the future is not exactly productive - nor is writing to a school when they don't know the first thing about how to submit a letter.  The initiative here is on you - you send them the information, provide the links or prompt to submit the letter itself, and the information (SOP, transcripts, OLD WORK - you mentioned you hadn't seen your professors in years, might be a good idea) that will remind them about you and give them something to write about in the first place. 

Worrying about whether they're replying is not productive and setting the deadlines yourself (I hear 3 weeks is a good bet, 2 is too short and 4 is too long but I'm not sure about that) will get the ball rolling.  Remember, this is your initiative, you decided to apply to grad school, and as such, you're the one who has to make letters happen.

[TakeruK]

You should never ever ask them to see your LORs. Not a year from now, not 10 years from now. However, in the ideal case, you should pretty much know exactly what is going to be in each letter because you and the prof should have a had a strong enough relationship that you would not worry that the prof would write overwhelming negative things about you. In fact, I would say that if you are not 100% certain that the prof will write positive things about you, then you should not ask that prof for the letter. 

 

Note that even if you didn't waive your right to see the letter, you can only view the letter due to the fact that they will become a part of your student record. However, you only will have a student record if you actually get admitted to and attend that school. So, even if you don't waive your rights, you won't be able to see the letters from schools you didn't get into, and it would be not very useful to see the LORs after you are already in a PhD program. So, always waive your rights, it's the norm!

 

As for timing of letters, as others said, they don't usually get written until just before or just after the actual deadline. You're in good shape now -- you have found at least 3 people willing to write you letters. More letters is not better -- if you have more than 3 and you feel that one is going to be less strong, then drop that letter and don't use it. It's better to just have 3 strong letters than 3 strong letters plus 1 average letter. 

 

I would recommend sending the official LOR request using your online application about 4 weeks before the deadline, so that the profs know it's coming. I would then send a reminder at 2 weeks before the deadline, 2 days before the deadline, and the day after the deadline if necessary. I would send ALL reminders through the application system, because then they will have a link directly to the place where the professor will upload their letter, and it will be much easier for them to have that link come with every reminder than for them to have to find the original email with the link from a month ago.

[powerlifterty16]

yeah i need to send the prompt. I had another professor call me this morning, but I was sleeping and not feeling so good so my dad told him  iwas in the shower and would call him back. I forgot to call him o.0 and just realized, so ill call him tomorrow and hope he understands.

[powerlifterty16]

i should have 4-5 letters from people. Ill send 3 the prompt, and give the other 2 the physical address.

[TakeruK]

How do you know your letter writers? I would only send 4-5 letters if all 4-5 letter writers can write very strong letters about my research work with them. It's pretty rare for someone to have this many research LORs but if you have it, then that's great! However, if you only have a few research LORs, I would recommend only sending the 3 strongest letters -- and research LORs are much stronger than "this student did great in my class" type letters. Grad school LORs are not like job employment LORs -- more is not better, especially if they all say similar things about classroom performance. If you have one or two really strong letters, then sending in 4-5 letters will just dilute the stronger ones.

[SportPsych30]

yeah i need to send the prompt. I had another professor call me this morning, but I was sleeping and not feeling so good so my dad told him  iwas in the shower and would call him back. I forgot to call him o.0 and just realized, so ill call him tomorrow and hope he understands.

Sometimes I honestly feel like you are just here trolling all these threads... 

[powerlifterty16]

Sometimes I honestly feel like you are just here trolling all these threads... 

good thing I dont care about about your opinion .

To answer the post above yours, I don't have any research experience, but most of my professors loved me, and my work ethic. They all say I brought a very creative insight to class discussions. I ccalled that professor today, and had a talk with him, and he told me I would be getting a very supportive letter, and it elates him that one of his students is pursuing higher degree study. I really enjoyed that professor's class, and am happy he is really supportive.

I've also decided to apply for the masters of psych at a different school. I think the masters will be way easier to get onto, although i'll still try for the phd at the school i want to go to.