Alright, so I just found out that my professor sent her letters using her lab email address instead of the school .edu one. She said that she has been having technical difficulties with her school email account and decided this would be faster.
Will this look suspicious? She said that they were submitted with the school’s letterhead, at least.
No, this won’t matter at all. First of all, it’s unlikely the search committee will see her email address anyway; likely the departmental secretary will pull all of the apps for them and organize them. But even in the very unlikely event that they do - even a suspicious person could do a quick Google search and find that she’s actually a professor at your college.
Thanks again. You’ve been a great help in calming my anxiety about hiccups in the app process.
Unlike a lot of folks, most of my apps did not explicitly state that official emails were required - just that they were strongly preferred. How often do schools call letter writers to confirm with them?
I would imagine not very often - they get hundreds of applications, and multiply that times 3 letters of recommendation. They don’t have time to call and verify most of them. I would imagine they only do it when they have reason to suspect something is amiss, and simply emailing from a lab website instead of a university website is unlikely to trigger this kind of inquiry.