<p>...ALWAYS go back and ask your teacher/counselor if they have sent in recs. </p>
<p>Obvious as this rule of thumb is, I was conceited enough to neglect it, believing that the teachers I had asked to write my letters were reliable enough that I could leave them alone during the entire process.
I clearly stated in my cover letter for them the date by which to send the recs in (10/1), and now, about a month after the specified date, I discover that one was sent in two weeks late and the other hasn't even been sent in yet!</p>
<p>I don't mean to sound like I'm blaming my teachers and I know this is entirely my fault, it's just that I never expected this to be such a dilemma for me. I thought that when I had requested the letters from them, and after one of them promised me that he would send his in a week before my deadline, it was a done deal.
My #1 choice is to get into UMich, and I feel that, academically, I'm VERY borderline, and hoped that these two teacher recs would serve as a final weight favoring me. The teacher whose rec hasn't been received apparently writes "excellent" letters, and I'm pretty sure he considered me an good student, which is why I was relying on his rec so much.</p>
<p>I emailed UMich and they said that they had received my other teacher rec already, which is all they require, so they've already started looking over my app. I will be asking my teachers about this tomorrow, but regarding the one that hasn't been sent in, do you think I should even bother asking for it? Will the admissions counselors even bother looking at it this close to the deadline?</p>