Confused about timing

[Ppkitty]

Hi all! I'm working on my SOP now, and I have my 3 recommenders lined up. I have 2 questions

1: what is the courteous amount of time to leave someone to write a letter? My apps are due in the beginning of January, would mid-early november be enough time? I am not asking them to start writing now because I want to send them a completed SOP first for them to work off of, and I have an extremely rough draft.

2: I feel silly asking this, but I have gotten conflicting messages looking at the messageboards about this. If the online application leaves a space to insert the recommender email, and they send out the email to the professor to prompt them to upload the letter, does that all need to be completed by the application deadline? Or is that flexible as long as my other application elements are in? I'm just scared my app will get thrown out because a recommender hasn't submitted yet . Thanks!

[ExponentialDecay]

Everything should be in by the deadline unless noted otherwise, but schools are more lenient about late LORs if you let them know that it's happening.

[GreenEyedTrombonist]

You can press submit on your app without the LoRs all in though. Writers can still upload their letters after you submit your portion of the app.

I  would also request letters before mid-November. If they are profs, you're dealing with holidays, final projects from their classes, and final exams. Then, right after the semester is over, it's the winter holiday season and you don't know if they already have plans for that time that means they are unable to write a letter then. One of my writers said she needed to have them all in before December 15th because she isn't available after that date. I asked her in September. 

Since my SoP wasn't done, I created a doc for my writers that listed each school, the degree name, the deadline, a bit about the program, the professors I want to work with, and my current level of communication with the program. Where I had it ready, I included sections from my SoP rough draft (and labeled them as such). I also included a fairly quick breakdown of my intended research project in the body of the email.

[TakeruK]

I think there are really two steps to asking for a letter from a prof. The first step is the actual asking for permission to use them as a letter writer. For most people, most of their letter writers will surely say yes, so this is more like the "heads-up" stage. Still probably a good/polite/professional idea to formally ask for a letter instead of assuming you'll get one even from your own advisors. During this stage, you can mention things like approximately how many schools you plan to apply to, when the deadlines are, and what you're interested in. You should also ask them what documents they want from you, when do they want the official ask for each school, when they might want reminders, and if they anticipate any extended travel time / time away from the office. If you have a good mentor-mentee relationship with them, you could even discuss your grad school plans, your career goals, your potential list of schools etc and get general advice on applying to grad school.

So, right now would be a good time to do this first step if you haven't already.

The next step is to actually make the requests with the application form and they write and upload the letter. When you start making these requests, you should provide whatever documents they asked for. I also like to prepare a one-page "cheat sheet" with a list of all the letters you are requesting. I organized them by due dates and listed school names, departments and a few POIs. My letter writers didn't want to see my SOP, but I did provide some basic stats at the top of the page (GREs, GPAs) and a short paragraph describing my research and career goals.

I sent this summary/info sheet around early November. Most of my letter writers wanted me to send the actual request 2 weeks before the deadline and then a reminder thru the system 2 days before the deadline and said that I should send another reminder 2 days after the deadline if it has not yet been submitted. I found it helpful to have decided these things ahead of time so that I wouldn't feel bad about "bugging" them if they told me to do it. If they don't bring up the topic, you could consider politely/professionally asking when they would like to see the submission request and whether they would find a reminder X days before the deadline helpful. With different letter writers, you might have different responses so keep notes on how each person wants their requests sent!

[Ppkitty]

Thanks @TakeruK that was very helpful!