No response - is professor ghosting a thing?

[kimmerrv]

Hi all and happy application season! 

I'm currently in the process of doing applications and I've stumbled upon an issue. 

I'm a distance student at a University that is 1500 miles away and so I've reached out through email to a professor about getting a LOR. I've done exceptionally well in her classes and we have chatted through messages a time or two about my progress in her courses. I sent my initial email about two weeks ago and heard nothing back, so I followed up this past week and have still heard nothing. Should I just drop the idea of her writing the LOR and move on, or follow up with her through another means of communication (CANVAS or BlackBoard)? 

Thanks for the help! 

 

[fuzzylogician]

Since we're just on the back end of a holiday weekend and some people took time off for a break, one option is that she simply didn't check her messages over the holiday. Your email is either sitting there with hundreds of other emails in her inbox, or it may have gotten lost in the shuffle. It sounds like this prof has been responsive in the past, so I'd suggest assuming some kind of oversight and simply following up again in a day or two, after she's presumably had time to get back to work and clear out the most pressing emails. If all your communication in the past has been through another platform, you might just try and use that again. 

[kimmerrv]

1 hour ago, fuzzylogician said:

Since we're just on the back end of a holiday weekend and some people took time off for a break, one option is that she simply didn't check her messages over the holiday. Your email is either sitting there with hundreds of other emails in her inbox, or it may have gotten lost in the shuffle. It sounds like this prof has been responsive in the past, so I'd suggest assuming some kind of oversight and simply following up again in a day or two, after she's presumably had time to get back to work and clear out the most pressing emails. If all your communication in the past has been through another platform, you might just try and use that again. 

Thanks! I sent her a message about a week before the holiday as well and then followed up again last week before break happened, but I'm sure it could have gotten lost. I'll try to curb my anxiety and hold off on bothering her again!

[scoobydoo9]

I'm having the same problem. She does have a tendency to procrastinate, but the anxiety is awful. Hope yours has submitted her letter!