Do you get penalized for a late LOR?

[Sparky]

What the thread title says.

For three of my 5 schools, the status of one LOR changed from "submitted" to "pending." The deadline for one of them was almost a month ago. I don't know when it changed. It is a different professor at all three schools.

I am just sick with fear right now.

[fuzzylogician]

It sounds like a mistake.. but if it doesn't change back soon, contact the schools and ask about it. If there's a problem maybe you can have your writers email their LOR directly to the department. Common knowledge has it that LORs can be somewhat late without damaging the student's application. Anyway, didn't you get a notification when the letter was submitted? If you did, I'm sure it is all OK. Even if not, it sounds more like a problem with the website than anything else.

ETA: it's also possible that the status changes when administrators start manually entering other parts of the app (transcripts, etc). But check to make sure.

Edited January 11, 2010 by fuzzylogician

[fancypants09]

What the thread title says.

For three of my 5 schools, the status of one LOR changed from "submitted" to "pending." The deadline for one of them was almost a month ago. I don't know when it changed. It is a different professor at all three schools.

I am just sick with fear right now.

What online application system are you using? And when did the status change occur? I know that on Embark recommenders can only make changes to their submitted letters by contacting Embark support, and if the change occurred recently (i.e., after the deadline), I wouldn't worry too much about it. You might want to contact your recommender and ask what's up, if it's really bothering you, and/or contact the admissions office and ask if they have received the LOR from that recommender.

Edited January 11, 2010 by fancypants09

[Sparky]

Thank you, everyone! I appreciate the sanity check more than you know.

As it turns out, one of the profs had filled out the form but hit 'cancel' instead of 'send', and all 3 of them are resubmitting this morning. So there are still nerves remaining--I'm worried that these are "we look for reasons to reject people" programs (i.e. <10% acceptance rate), but then again, I really do think that these are "tears of laughter rolling down their faces" schools. So, my plan is to be HAPPY it's those three.

Again, thank you.