LOR trouble

[Southwestspeechie]

Hello! I need some advice on how to best deal with a professor not responding to my e-mails. In the summer I spoke with my Spanish professor in person about writing me a letter of recommendation. I have taken two classes with her and did very well in both of them so she would be a great recommender. However, she has not responded for weeks to an e-mail I sent reminding her of my letter with a detailed document of instructions for each school. I just sent another e-mail (yesterday) with more schools that I added, and am waiting on a response. 

How should I best handle the situation if she is slow in responding this time?

I am thinking of also getting another Spanish professor to write another letter, for security and for some schools that want all of the letters to come from faculty. Would it look bad to have two Spanish professors writing me letters? My other professor is from psychology and I worked in her lab. 

Thanks in advance! 

[hopefulslp1]

I dealt with this issue before so I understand your frustration and anxiety! After me sending 3 emails with no response I finally decided to just call the office and leave a voicemail or see if you can speak with them over the phone. If you're brave enough perhaps just show up to her office hours and talk to her in person!

[Hope.for.the.best]

8 hours ago, Felice said:

Hello! I need some advice on how to best deal with a professor not responding to my e-mails. In the summer I spoke with my Spanish professor in person about writing me a letter of recommendation. I have taken two classes with her and did very well in both of them so she would be a great recommender. However, she has not responded for weeks to an e-mail I sent reminding her of my letter with a detailed document of instructions for each school. I just sent another e-mail (yesterday) with more schools that I added, and am waiting on a response. 

How should I best handle the situation if she is slow in responding this time?

I am thinking of also getting another Spanish professor to write another letter, for security and for some schools that want all of the letters to come from faculty. Would it look bad to have two Spanish professors writing me letters? My other professor is from psychology and I worked in her lab. 

Thanks in advance! 

It is definitely no harm to ask for another referee just in case the professor you contacted doesn't get back to you.

Have you checked that she is in the office? Usually people will set autoreply when they are away, but it is possible that they don't, e.g. sick leave. Since you only emailed again yesterday, you'd better wait for a few days. If you still hear nothing, then maybe ring her up and see if you can get to her over the phone. However, I would not recommend going to her office without notice during office hours. To her, writing a recommendation letter may not be the most important thing she needs to attend to right now, so she may not like when someone chases after her in person when she is terribly busy. Some people are okay with that, but some will see that as impolite (it really depends). The last thing you want is to leave a bad impression to a potential referee. Well, you may need her to write a recommendation letter for other purposes (Who knows?). If I were you, I would simply turn to another referee if I don't hear back within a reasonable time frame. If she gets back to you afterwards, you can explain politely that the school requires the letter by a certain date, so you turned to someone else. Don't forget to thank for her time and say that you will turn to her again if you need a recommendation letter in future (even if you will not)! 

[Southwestspeechie]

9 hours ago, hopefulslp1 said:

I dealt with this issue before so I understand your frustration and anxiety! After me sending 3 emails with no response I finally decided to just call the office and leave a voicemail or see if you can speak with them over the phone. If you're brave enough perhaps just show up to her office hours and talk to her in person!

I was thinking to see her in person...Her and I had a pretty good relationship and she did tell me that I would need to remind her since she is the department head and tends to get very busy! Thank you for your great advice, sorry that you also had to deal with this! 

[Southwestspeechie]

8 hours ago, Hope.for.the.best said:

It is definitely no harm to ask for another referee just in case the professor you contacted doesn't get back to you.

Have you checked that she is in the office? Usually people will set autoreply when they are away, but it is possible that they don't, e.g. sick leave. Since you only emailed again yesterday, you'd better wait for a few days. If you still hear nothing, then maybe ring her up and see if you can get to her over the phone. However, I would not recommend going to her office without notice during office hours. To her, writing a recommendation letter may not be the most important thing she needs to attend to right now, so she may not like when someone chases after her in person when she is terribly busy. Some people are okay with that, but some will see that as impolite (it really depends). The last thing you want is to leave a bad impression to a potential referee. Well, you may need her to write a recommendation letter for other purposes (Who knows?). If I were you, I would simply turn to another referee if I don't hear back within a reasonable time frame. If she gets back to you afterwards, you can explain politely that the school requires the letter by a certain date, so you turned to someone else. Don't forget to thank for her time and say that you will turn to her again if you need a recommendation letter in future (even if you will not)! 

I definitely will still ask another Spanish professor that I know well, only issue is that for some schools I need all three letters to be from faculty, so I would still needs hers. I am going to wait a bit longer, and then see if I can set up an appointment with her. I appreciate your advice, it is true that I do not want to upset her!