Professor sent LOR to the wrong email

[Itsarainbow]

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Hello,

I posted about this situation earlier but did not get a definite response. One of my professors who gave me a LOR emailed it to me instead of sending it to interfolio. I tried to reach out to the professor but he did not respond. I didn't open the letter and sent it straight to interfolio using my brother's email. Now the question arises if what I did was unethical. Will the committee see that the email used to send the letter was not of the professor and consider me a fraud?

@Goro can you please provide me with info?

 

[OrdinaryDO]

Hello,

I posted about this situation earlier but did not get a definite response. One of my professors who gave me a LOR emailed it to me instead of sending it to interfolio. I tried to reach out to the professor but he did not respond. I didn't open the letter and sent it straight to interfolio using my brother's email. Now the question arises if what I did was unethical. Will the committee see that the email used to send the letter was not of the professor and consider me a fraud?

@Goro can you please provide me with info?

I can not give official advice, but I can give you my opinion on the matter and how I think it could play out.

Scenario 1 - You send it using your brothers e-mail, which isn't ideal at all, but you send it anyway. Now, the school receives it through inter folio and notices the e-mail seems suspicious, therefore they contact the professor who wrote the letter and ask of the validity of the letter. If he/she wrote it, then maybe everything is okay.

Scenario 2 - You send the letter from your brother's e-mail directly to inter folio and they notice the e-mail. At this time they throw out your application and call it good. Some of the reasons being maybe it IS unethical, maybe they are worried that you had the chance to read it, maybe they don't like to question themselves when it's easier to just throw your application away and move on to the next candidate.

All in all I would have waited for the professor to respond. I would have done all that was necessary to get in touch with him or her and had them re-send the letter. You have yourself in a predicament, because now even if they do accept the letter, it's value possibly dropped due to you "reading" it before sending it. I say that, because you have to assume you read it if it was in your possession. My question is why did they e-mail it to you instead of uploading it to inter folio? I am not familiar with this system specifically, but when my professors used it they said when they "UPLOADED" the letters, they would let us know. Then, all they did was enter in the school name and hit send and it sent it to each medical school I asked them to send it to.

 

[NecrotizingFasciitis]

Do you have an academic adviser you could potentially confide in/send the letter to who could then send it to interfolio?

 

[IslandStyle808]

Brah don't over think this and put yourself in panic. You know yourself you didn't read the letter, keep in mind your are an ethical person.

Now, you need to get in touch with your professor and have him send the letter to interfolio in confidentiality. This is the only thing that should matter in your mind. Only if your professor inquires if you read the letter, then tell him you didn't. Hopefully he is okay with resending the letter to interfolio. Don't over complicate this situation. It is a mistake that is not your fault.

 

[Itsarainbow]

The thing is I have tried to contact him many times but he has not responded.

 

[Itsarainbow]

When I had asked the professor I did not have an interfolio account. I asked him to hold on to it instead of sending it to me. I contacted him many times and he did not respond. If the school is worried about the letter being fraudulent then they can contact the professor themselves because he probably left his email and phone number on the letter. I don't belive I've done anything unethical in this case.

 

[Nikj]

When I had asked the professor I did not have an interfolio account. I asked him to hold on to it instead of sending it to me. I contacted him many times and he did not respond. If the school is worried about the letter being fraudulent then they can contact the professor themselves because he probably left his email and phone number on the letter. I don't belive I've done anything unethical in this case.

Two things to think about.

1. Don't look to much into this, schools look at hundreds of applications, and they aren't likely to do a full investigation into a single applicants letter.

2. If the issue ever comes up with the school be completely honest and tell them that your Professor sent it to you by mistake, and to save time you forwarded it.

Now in the meantime, GO IMMEDIATELY to your Professor in person, explain the issue, and have him resubmit it.

 

[IslandStyle808]

Agree with above. When all else fails, a face to face with your professor will speed things up.

 

[Itsarainbow]

The thing is my professor lives 7 hours away.... 🙁

 

[Marrowist]

Just curious, but who says you cant read the letter...?