Urgent Confusion: Is he not willing to give me recommendation?

[poeticlife]

Hello Guys,

I am really frustrated because one of my potential recommenders did not reply to my email. I asked him in Mid-November concerning recommendation, yet no email was replied. Several days later, I asked him about a journal and he sent me the journal without replying my recommendation question. We used to have good connection and very interactive communication in his class in Spring 2013. He taught a 4000 level class while me and another (we are only undergrads) undergrad student turned out to be more motivated. His previous school was Purdue which I am planning to apply for. So I really want his rec. In September I left for Seattle. Before departure, I scheduled an appointment with him talking about the possibility of getting to grad school. My biggest regret is not to ask for rec at that time: it might be because I trusted him and our relationship so much that I am confident in this one, almost 70% sure that he would write one. Now it turns out to be a tragedy or so?

OK, I will illustrate the timeline:

 

Spring 2013, class, interactive

Summer, asked him for a meeting with classmates, he was abroad and could not attend;

September, appointment concerning grad application;

November 10, ask for letter, not replied;

November 15th, ask for journal, replied, no reply for previous email regarding rec;

November 26th, ask again with journal questions (feedback), asked him "by the way, how do you think of the recommendation?" at the end, informal question not to be offensive-No reply by tonight.

 

Yet he used to reply to my emails, for once after one week. But not too long later.

 

His recommendation is really important for me because my mentor to research project cannot write me one due to family issue. That means I lose the strong one for research and need one from academia as compensation. It is so weird for me not getting any response. At least a "no" could tell me something. 

My roommate said profs would not mind writing rec to good students because it's no big deal. Yet now I am totally lost. Well..... 

 

Could you guys give me some hints and suggestions? If possible, I still wanna try to get his. At least I don't wanna die without a reason. Yet waiting is def not a solution. I am thinking of calling him, or his secretory? The biggest issue is I am not on campus. If I am, I would simply go by, say hi, and throw out my question or request. Now it's totally out of my control.

 

Thank you very much!!!

[yhakak]

It doesn't sound good...when is your deadline?

[Sarah Bee]

Hello Poetic life,

 

I have been through the same and I felt terrible emailing my professor again and again until one day I gathered the courage to call her up. Things went smoothly afterwards. However, she told me to draft a letter myself because she didn't have time.

Therefore, I suggest you call your professor up and discuss the problem. That would take care of your worries.   

Edited December 3, 2013 by Sarah Bee

[k_angie]

Hi Poetic Life, 

 

I too faced the same thing with one of my referees. Though the thing with her was even though she never wrote back or replied to my emails, she wrote and uploaded my LORS before my deadline (even though, just few hrs away from it but anyway) . Just make sure your prof knows the deadline and i am sure he or she shall get back to you before it. Dont worry. It will be fine. 

 

good luck 

[qualthian]

I don't think he has any interest in your success and future education. This person will not give you the strong letter you expect him to be (my opinion).

 

Give him a call, because deadline is approachind and you need an answer as soon as possible. If you can't, send him daily e-mails because you are in a very critical condition. Be selfish.

 

Good luck

[surefire]

I don't think he has any interest in your success and future education. This person will not give you the strong letter you expect him to be (my opinion).

 

Give him a call, because deadline is approachind and you need an answer as soon as possible. If you can't, send him daily e-mails because you are in a very critical condition. Be selfish.

 

Good luck

 

I don't think this is a good idea.

 

If, at some point, the professor had acknowledged your request and AGREED to write you a letter, I'd give you a green-light to step up your pestering game, but that's not the case here.

 

A lot of what the you, OP, describes above is a self-assessment presuming the prof's support: you say that there was good interaction and that you were memorably motivated in class. You mention a meeting pertaining to your grad school aspirations. Don't get me wrong, those are encouraging signs. However, not once do you say that the prof himself told you that he thought you were a good candidate, and that coupled with the fact that he was not responsive to your request does not bode well for you. This doesn't mean that you aren't a good student, or that the prof doesn't think that you have potential to be a good grad student, but there hasn't been any affirmation on the prof's part that they are able to support you in this pursuit by providing a letter.

 

Let me preface this by saying: he should have addressed the request and told you "no", it's bad form to leave you hanging and I appreciate that that sucks. That being said, profs do not "owe" you letters because you are a good and keen student. Most profs I know set aside a full day or two in the semester to write all of their letters and they try to only commit to the number that they can accomplish in those days. This is time that they are taking away from other tasks. The lack of response isn't necessarily about you. They could have over-committed to letters already. There could be other factors at work (when applying to grad school, I had a prof whom I thought would be PERFECT as a letter writer because her course was emblematic of the program I was applying for and I did quite well in it; but she initially dodged my request and then admitted that she had an ongoing professional dispute with someone who was probably going to be on the admissions committee for the program I was interested in, so it might be in my interests to pursue someone else). So think of it this way, even though you're feeling a little desperate becuase your research rec letter couldn't commit, you don't want someone to write for you who is not keen to do so. I would cease pursuing this prof as a prospective letter-writer. If you absolutely must try for some closure, you could contact his secretary just to see what she says; if (s)he mentions that the prof has already committed to a full stable of students for letters, or if (s)he says that he usually responds quickly in the affirmative for letter requests, then you might want to drop it. His secretary will know how he works, so it's possible that you may find out that he is TYPICALLY evasive about letter requests, in which case you can ask the secretary how (s)he thinks you should proceed (does the prof respond better to phone calls, for example? or does the secretary think that he will just find this irritating?).

 

Depending on your deadline, I would recommend touching base with your research prof who could not commit (if they are still in a space where they can respond to e-mails) and talk through some of your options with them. They know your work and they know their colleagues, so they should be able to help you identify some potential candidates. As well, I'm getting the impression that you're a bit keen, so I'm assuming that you may have some acquaintence with your departmental chair or coordinator. You might consider sending them an e-mail or making a phone call to ask what they might recommend.

 

Good luck.

[Loric]

While I do think this is more on the side of.. "find a new rec" -  this whole process has made it very clear that profs are A) human and sometimes B ) a-holes. 

 

Pester them daily for not responding to emails sent to professional account involving professional correspondence?

 

Sure, have at them. Who cares if they hate your guts. Jerk. 

[Loric]

Here's me playing the world's tiniest violin for professors who are soooo burdened by having to send out a 2 line email saying they can't/wont/etc, so sorry. 

Edited December 3, 2013 by Loric

[TakeruK]

Here's me playing the world's tiniest violin for professors who are soooo burdened by having to send out a 2 line email saying they can't/wont/etc, so sorry. 

 

I find it very unprofessional and frustrating when anyone (not just profs) do not respond to professional emails within a reasonable time (for most cases this would be ~1 week). Some people have a hard time saying no, but I think it's part of one's professional responsibility to respond to emails.

 

I don't think profs should be obligated to write a LOR for every student in the department, but they can at least say no when they cannot write one. However, I do think LOR writing is an obligation when you have supervised someone's research. I feel that agreeing to be student's supervisor is a commitment that includes professional development of that student through activities such as writing LORs.

 

While I do think this is more on the side of.. "find a new rec" -  this whole process has made it very clear that profs are A) human and sometimes B ) a-holes. 

 

Pester them daily for not responding to emails sent to professional account involving professional correspondence?

 

Sure, have at them. Who cares if they hate your guts. Jerk. 

 

Even if the prof is in the wrong for not responding to the request at all, I really do not think that pestering them daily is a recommended path. What will it really accomplish? If you have to coerce a letter writer into writing an LOR, I am pretty sure it will not be a good LOR at all. I don't think the OP has anything to gain at all from doing this and it will probably make things worse. Some things might be worth doing even if it means a prof might "hate your guts"; after all, you can't please everyone. But this isn't one of them -- the only gain would be the satisfaction of overloading the prof's inbox, something the prof can easily get rid of with a spam filter.

 

---

 

Finally, to the OP, I don't mean to pick on you especially since I don't know what you actually wrote to the prof but it could be possible that the request was not clearly worded enough. Some people have an annoying habit of only reading a few lines of each email and then skimming the rest, so if you try to discuss more than one topic in the email, they might not have seen everything. From your timeline, it seems like your Nov 10 request was only about the LOR so that was probably okay. But your Nov 26 email seems to include two topics in a single email, which I don't think is a good idea for professional correspondence. Remember also that the past weekend was a holiday long weekend.

[poeticlife]

Thank you guys! Thank you all! I called him and he said he would be willing to do so for me!!! Your advice really gave me courage. Cheers!!!

[Jungshin]

Thank you guys! Thank you all! I called him and he said he would be willing to do so for me!!! Your advice really gave me courage. Cheers!!!

 

Good, Glad it worked out.

 

There are so many examples of confusing and perplexing situations regarding recommendation letters, and I'm glad that yours is a happy ending.