Becoming very anxious...

[nicolej5]

I finished observing at a geriatric physical therapy office about 2.5-3 weeks ago. I asked the PT if she would be willing to fill out both the observation form and the reference form. She said that she would be more than happy too and that she would most likely do it quite soon to get it off her list. Long story short, I haven't heard a word from her since. I put her email in PTCAS and even sent an additional email with other info from my personal address. She also made a note to herself to email me if she didn't receive the PTCAS emails. I'm very nervous about this, as she is my only PT reference. I emailed her yesterday and will call next week. Has anyone else experienced this? I understand they're busy, but to not even send a quick one sentence email saying she got it, etc. is very rude/unprofessional to me. Did anyone else out there wait a while to get their reference? I need to send it out by Sept 1st, so only a few weeks left. Off my soap box now, lol.

 

[hmmmatt]

I think the longest I ever waited for either hours to be verified or a reference to be sent was about two weeks. It is very frustrating, because you want to get all this stuff done as early as possible, but sometimes the PTs or professors need a little kick to get going with it. You don't want to seem too overbearing with it, but a slight nudge after a decent amount of time isn't a bad thing. They can very easily displace these things in their minds, especially if they have a lot of students coming through.

One other thing I would be wary of is that sometimes the email service your PT or professor is using may group PTCAS emails together. This happened with one of the PTs I observed and received a LOR from. It made it look like there was only one email sent, but the hours verification and the LOR request were grouped together by his gmail/yahoo/whatever it was.

Good luck!

 

[djb051]

I had the same problem (I made a thread about it a couple of days ago). I had a PT that I shadowed that said she would verify my hours for me. Long story short, it took her like 1 month to verify my hours. Because of how long it took, I didn't think she would verify them ever. I sent her one final email asking her if she could tell me if she will verify my hours or not. I said if not, please tell me so that I can figure out what to do with my application. I basically gave a deadline too. She emailed me back shortly after that, which surprised me. She told me she never received the ptcas email and has been looking for it. She told me to have ptcas send it again. She verified it shortly after that.
So maybe you can send a reminder and indicate a deadline or something. Or she might not have received it. Remind them to check the spam folder as sometimes the ptcas email ends up in there. Good luck.

 

[nicolej5]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Still no reply to the email I sent a few days ago so looks like I'll be calling next week. This is just a very nerve wracking time for us applicants 🙁

 

[excitedPT]

i am in the same situation right now. ;(
i asked them if i could put them on my application already and they haven't replied yet. I dont know if I should just put them on PTCAS already.
I put one PT on PTCAS already and informed him that he should have received an email from PTCAS, and he hasn't responded back to me. I am starting to get nervous now.

 

[nicolej5]

I hear you! I'm sure they don't do it intentionally or maliciously, but it's excruciating to wait! I don't have a backup PT so if she doesn't do it....I don't think I can apply this year which will be a huge drag 🙁

 

[djb051]

Don't give up hope just yet. I was not going to email that PT back since it had been a month with no response, and I was going to stop trying to get her to verify the hours. But I took the advice from others on the board to continue to try to contact her, and it worked. If email does not work, call the office, or stop by during lunch. Good luck.

 

[pgaspartan]

I am to in the same boat. The only PT on my reference list has known since April that he was going to write me a letter. I even kept in contact with him after my shadowing ended and he always talked to me about the letter, I never brought it up until I actually had PTCAS send the email. Now it has been a month. To make matters worse, I got an email today from PTCAS saying that my GPAs have been calculated and my app is verified. They are supposedly sending out the app to my schools sometime next week. I think I will stop by his office when I get back from vacation in a week and say Hi. Maybe that will remind him.

 

[nicolej5]

I actually just heard back from her via email saying she will put it on top of her priority list so I am very relieved to say the least! After that I will be submitting ahhh!

 

[SlyGuy]

Have them check their spam box - sometimes it gets redirected there. I had a similar problem where they said they never received it, but after checking their spam they found it. Hope this helps...