Emergency Affected Recommender - Help me not freak out!

[wanderwhale]

So, if my intended, committed, Professor has been affected by a natural disaster, how likely is it that schools will have some leniency if I cannot get a letter in in time? My previously committed professor, who is an older man who I am pretty certain lived in the area affected by one of the SoCal fires and used to be super quickly responsive has just gone totally dark after last week. I'm not 100% sure what the deal is yet, but I'm thinking it's pretty likely he was affected by the fires, and since he was already quite busy and trying to fit writing my letter in, I'm now uncertain about whether the letter will happen in time. I've reached out to him again, as well as another Professor, in hopes that they will either take his place or be an optional third, but I can't help but panic a little now that everything's coming so close to the deadline. Anyone have experience with something like this with any advice/help not totally freaking out? For reference I'm applying to MA programs in International Affairs.

[TakeruK]

Very likely. One of my letter writers lost a family member near one of my deadlines and was able to submit a week late.

Generally, schools allow letter writers some leeway beyond the deadline and will not hold things out of the applicant's control against them. See also:

In your case, you're not past the deadline yet. I would try to contact your letter writer again 2 days before the deadline and then the day after the deadline if you still have not heard from them. Hopefully by then, they will get back to you and either say the letter is coming or that they need more time.

If you hear back from them with an estimated time for the letter, contact the school whose deadline you missed and let them know what's going on.

If you don't hear back from them after the deadline, contact the school to say that you are still waiting for a response from one letter writer and ask how much more time you have before the letter is no longer accepted. Just to reach out and be proactive. I would not speculate that the letter writer has an emergency though.

Since you have already reached out to a backup prof, let them know your plan. You need to decide whether or not you want to wait for the original prof or use the backup prof anyways (with slight risk that the backup prof might end up displacing the original prof's letter). This depends on how strong you feel each potential letter is, given how much time they might have had to write it. You might choose to only add the backup prof either at the deadline or after the deadline (with a risk that you may not be able to add additional reccommenders in the system after the deadline, however they are likely to be able to override that).