<p>hi everyone,
all schools that I applied have received everything except 1 letter of recommendation from my professor. although most schools that I applied have deadline in January, Duke and UMich deadlines are coming up next week, and they sent email to remind me that my application is still missing his letter. I sent him a reminder already, but he has not uploaded it yet. I'm kinda worried that he's super busy (he's quite famous) that he couldn't submit his letter on time. I'm just wondering in case he sent his letter late for Duke and UMich, is it still ok? or will I risk my chance because of that? anybody has ever experienced this situation? thanks.</p>
<p>I was in a very similar situation. I think it is fine if the letters are a few days late (not a week or something like that). It’s won’t hurt to email the faculty member chairing the admissions committee explaining your situation; they are usually sympathetic to these things.</p>
<p>I’m in the same situation, applying to Duke and one of my professors hasn’t submitted his letter yet. I mentioned the deadline to him and he confirmed that he had received the email from Duke, so hopefully he will still complete it on time. Just in case I have a backup recommender who will mail in his letter tomorrow. Does it have to arrive by the deadline or will it be fine if it was postmarked beforehand?</p>
<p>I had a professor who submitted at 1hr before the 12AM deadline. Just send a reminder the night of the deadline.</p>
<p>I sent him emails last week the list of schools that I applied along with their deadlines, and he confirmed that he had received all of them. this week I sent him another email to remind the deadlines of Duke and UMich, but he didn’t replied me back :-S. that’s why I’m kinda worried right now. I don’t wanna risk my chance for Duke and UMich since those 2 schools are my top choices. I think I’m gonna send my thank you card tomorrow or something to remind him about the letters for me, and shoot another email next week one day before deadline for Duke to make sure he will send it on time. this is really stressful when it’s out of my control.</p>
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Yes, it will be fine. Professors are notoriously terrible about deadlines, and programs are very aware that they routinely send in letters late, and that there’s not much you can do about it.</p>
<p>Generally, if one of your letters is missing by the time the program needs to have everything together to make decisions or offer interview invitations, they will contact your letter-writer personally.</p>
<p>Do not drive your letter-writers crazy with repeated requests. If you’ve informed them of the deadlines, they know what they need to do. Everything will work out in the wash.</p>
<p>One of my letters still isn’t in for 2 schools whose deadlines were December 1. She didn’t receive a few of the requests apparently, probably because my school’s email servers have been down a lot the past few weeks. I found this out on Friday and immediately emailed the instructions to a different account, but haven’t received any responses over the weekend.</p>
<p>I really really hope she gets them in tomorrow.</p>
<p>just talked to my friend who works in his lab. she told me he’s extremely busy this week to finish the DARPA proposal to meet deadline this week. he even canceled lab meeting, which he has never done this before. chances are he might forget about my letter of rec and the deadline this week. considering this sensitive situation, should I still email to remind him one day before the deadline? should I email Duke to let them know the letter might arrive late? or should I email him once the deadline has passed (!?) I don’t wanna risk my chance, but at the same time, I don’t want him to be mad and send a crappy letter to rest after this :-S.</p>
<p>Phan - if has not written any of the letters yet I would not bother him. But if he’s started a draft or finished the letter, and just has yet to send them out, I’d bug the heck out of him to send it off on time.</p>
<p>Ideally, it shouldn’tve come to this. You shoud’ve asked for the letters in August and kept up with them to make sure it was written by October, sent by November.</p>
<p>@denizen: I dont know if he’s started a draft or not. I asked him as early as July, sent out request by August to September. he confirmed that he received all the request in October. I sent him remind about the deadlines of all schools in November. 2 weeks ago I sent another email to remind the deadline of Duke. technically, I’ve done everything I should do and in advance…so I don’t think it’s my fault. the situation is out of my control.</p>
<p>I apologize, you’re right. It isn’t your fault. A lot of people are hunting for last minute writers, I had assumed that was you as well.</p>
<p>I used the same timeline as you, but lucky for me, they submitted it on time, though I kind of pressured them. </p>
<p>I think you should call or email him every other day starting tomorrow, given the extenuating circumstances. It’s crunch time and he needs to know you’re in this thing whether he likes it or not. You’ve already spent so much $ on transcripts and GRE scores. Don’t let this missing letter make everything go to waste. I doubt you’ll get a ****ed off letter. It might be rushed and contain some errors, but that’s better than an incomplete application at this time of the season.</p>
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I strongly disagree. If he knows (and it is clear that he knows) that the letter is due, he will not forget about it. If the letter goes in late, it will not affect your application – this is an expected side effect for grad program admins.</p>
<p>It will take a few weeks after the deadline to collect all the application pieces for each application: transcripts, test scores, letters of recommendation. </p>
<p>I work for a similarly high-profile PI who frequently writes letters of recommendation for our lab’s undergrads for grad school/med school applications. I know he has turned several letters in late (as he has done for grants, grades, reports, and anything else with a deadline), and it has not affected anyone’s ability to get into great programs. If someone called/emailed him “every other day” to remind him about an upcoming deadline… he would get very angry, very quickly.</p>
<p>Trust your professors to know which deadlines are firm, and which deadlines can be manipulated.</p>
<p>Thanks for your advice. Duke emailed me saying that although I have a missing document, they will still send the rest to the department for review. I’ll contact the department to inform that the letter will come late and hope they will understand.</p>
<p>I disagree with molliebatmit and the general idea that it’s okay to have it late, even if they say they understand. I’d rather p<em>ss off the letter writer than rope a 3rd party (the school you’re applying to) into this. Here’s why: a slightly rushed/p</em>ssed-off letter (which you’ll get anyway) is probably not going to be that different from a really p*ssed off letter that’s on time (for bugging him). In fact, it might not even make a difference; your professor may have a stock formatted letter he uses for almost everyone, so it’s already ready to go.</p>
<p>Until the deadline, it’s a grind-out battle between you and your professor to straighten this out. Don’t plan on it being late. Never do. I wouldnt’ve mentioned it to the school that it might be late. If the deadline passes and it’s still not there, only then is it on to plan B: contacting the school. Anyway, good luck.</p>
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I wouldn’t rely on that. One of my applications was due on Dec 15 and the decisions were released in the first week of January - quite impressive with the holidays in between.</p>
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<p>Yeah, in fact this must be typical.</p>
<p>don’t know what to do now…I check his office and he’s not there. he’s nowhere to be found and I can’t reach him via email…</p>
<p>He sounds like my letter writer. I emailed my letter writer a month ago, didn’t hear back from him at all. Then, the week of Thanksgiving Day I get an email from him “I am in South America for the next several weeks…” Great, he never told me he was going to South America. I guess he was doing research there. I didn’t hear back from him for 2 more weeks, so I called his secretary to find out when he’d be back. Luckily she told me. The day he got back (2 days ago), I called him and asked if he could submit my letter before the next time he travels. I even asked him “are you going back to South America anytime soon.” “Not until next week,” he said. “I’ll get your letter in by Friday” Oh no, not this again I thought (that’s what he said last time!). Luckily, he submitted the letter just 2 hours later. He must have found the dozen emails I sent him while he was in South America. LOL. Anyways, THANK GOD it’s done. It takes some persistance. You can’t be shy.</p>
<p>just talk to my boss, who has close connection with him, and my boss has sent an SMS to him. not sure if he will do it for me on time, but hopefully with the SMS from my boss, he would not ignore me…</p>
<p>And these days when everything is digital, it may not take weeks to ‘collect’ things for some schools. It might even be out of their hands, with the software simply not accepting items after a certain point. This is speculation, of course. Certainly there are schools for which these deadlines are not concrete, where they even expect late items. Maybe this is true even for the majority of programs, I don’t know. But I certainly wouldn’t risk it having not heard directly from someone in the specific department during the same application season. Maybe it seems like some of us are making too big a deal of these deadlines, but with all the work involved in this process, it would be a terrible step to screw things up on.</p>
<p>Having said that, if you’re going to try the frequent emailing others have mentioned, do be extremely cautious about your tone.</p>