Recommender is going to give me a panic attack. Forum

[xyzzzzzzzz]

I am superpanicking right now. Two of my letter writers are professional writers, and of course they're the ones who are taking FOREVER to send them in. I send polite e-mails, but have heard nothing.

This happened to me, one just ended up on vacation and didn't check email. It sucks i know, but just try to be patient.

[worldtraveler]

A lot of this advice sucks. Profs are busy, busy people. It's September 1st, and schools don't even review applications until Nov. 1st at the earliest. Seriously, calm down. At the beginning of the semester profs have a lot of things to do that don't involve writing your letter. Give it a couple weeks.

Profs also usually don't procrastinate if they know what they want to say about you. Did you give them a copy of your CV? Your personal statement? Diversity statement? Any other random stuff they need to know about you? Did you give them a firm deadline of when you need the letter, not "around this time." Without those things, it will take a long time.

I've gotten over 100 LORs (I applied for pretty much everything that could send me to a foreign country) and every time I sent everything the person needed to know about me and had the envelope addressed, stamped, and everything. They always got it in on time. Seriously, the easier you make it on them, the faster it will get done. Showing up and complaining about it might only piss a person off.

[mchuynh]

My professor is not responding to my emails either. I don't know whether or not I should call her.

[let/them/eat/cake]

A lot of this advice sucks. Profs are busy, busy people. It's September 1st, and schools don't even review applications until Nov. 1st at the earliest. Seriously, calm down. At the beginning of the semester profs have a lot of things to do that don't involve writing your letter. Give it a couple weeks.

Profs also usually don't procrastinate if they know what they want to say about you. Did you give them a copy of your CV? Your personal statement? Diversity statement? Any other random stuff they need to know about you? Did you give them a firm deadline of when you need the letter, not "around this time." Without those things, it will take a long time.

I've gotten over 100 LORs (I applied for pretty much everything that could send me to a foreign country) and every time I sent everything the person needed to know about me and had the envelope addressed, stamped, and everything. They always got it in on time. Seriously, the easier you make it on them, the faster it will get done. Showing up and complaining about it might only piss a person off.

This is all true but also for those individual situations where the guy told u "absolutely I can't wait to write your LR" and *then* flakes out, j would get on that guys ass. Bc don't b enthusiastic if you don't mean it. Otherwise, these guys are actually busy, mostly grading bullshit, tedious and completely maudlin undergrad papers, so cut them some slack, and remember it's likely that the person you asked for a reccomendation was also asked by like a whole gaggle of other folks bc they are the "cool teacher", so just like everyone else, expect a mediocre, middling and innocuous LR, and take solace in the fact that they don't matter anyway.

EDIT: Added a period at the end, so as to make my post, long and from an iPhone, perfect.