Letter of recommendation listed as "in progress" on application?

[drownsoda]

So I'm still waiting on my final letter of recommendation to come in from my best recommender— a well-respected professor who I had a history with and did extremely well in his classes. I registered him as a recommender on my applications December 13th, and the other day I sent a "reminder" to him through the application as I hadn't heard back since he (very enthusaistcally) agreed to write me a letter.

 

I now noticed on one of my applications that his letter status has changed to "in progress" as of December 21st. My question is, does the application automatically do this when I send out a reminder, or is that supposed to indicate that he manually selected the status and that his letter is quite literally in progress? 

 

I checked one of my other applications and his status is still listed as "unconfirmed" and the letter "not submitted."

Edited December 23, 2014 by drownsoda

[MathCat]

I believe it means he has logged in or something with the instructions they have sent. I don't think it's anything he would have manually selected. A few of my applications had this happen, but I knew from speaking to my recommender that he had not done anything yet (this was quite early).

[drownsoda]

I believe it means he has logged in or something with the instructions they have sent. I don't think it's anything he would have manually selected. A few of my applications had this happen, but I knew from speaking to my recommender that he had not done anything yet (this was quite early).

 

I hope that's the case, that'd make me feel a hell of a lot better. I've been worried but I keep telling myself the lack of communication over the past week has just been because he's been busy (busy time of year, and I'm sure he has other letters to write). If he's accessed one of them, then I know he's GOTTEN them at least (or so I hope). My first deadline isn't until January 3rd— and it so happens that the only application that has this "in progress" indication is the one with the Jan. 3rd deadline. Maybe he's just getting them done in chronology with the deadlines? Who knows.

[rising_star]

You do realize January 3 is two weeks away, right? There's really no reason to be stressed out about this right now. I have things due January 1 that I haven't even started yet (and no, I don't mean grad school applications). That is part of the academic life. It'll be alright.

[drownsoda]

You do realize January 3 is two weeks away, right? There's really no reason to be stressed out about this right now. I have things due January 1 that I haven't even started yet (and no, I don't mean grad school applications). That is part of the academic life. It'll be alright.

 

I know, I know, I'm just paranoid as the deadlines begin to approach and the horror stories about people's recommenders dropping off the face of the earth and not responding to them are not exactly helpful.

 

I wouldn't be as worried about it if I didn't feel that he wasn't my most important recommender, but I do, so I'm extra anxious about getting his letter in. I feel like his input will be more important to my application as a whole than my other two recommenders' just because I have a longer academic history with him. He was my favorite professor, hands down— a super hard grader, but I worked my ass off in his classes and did extremely well, and I know he respected that. More than anything, I feel that he knows what I am capable of more than the other recommenders do, and I think that's vital to my application.

 

I don't think I need to worry at this point though, because I just checked one of my other applications and his status is listed as "activated" on that one, so I'm assuming he got the emails or has at least logged into the letter submission form.