Recommender is nonresponsive, what should I do?

[xX_premed_Xx]

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One of my recommenders said they'd be very happy to write me a letter, and requested I write a draft letter for them to edit and send. It's now been a month since the deadline I provided them, and three months since our last communication. I've already sent them follow-up emails to no response.

What should I do in this situation? While searching here, I saw that some professors are aware of application/interview timelines and send by their own deadline. But my alma mater requires all letters to be submitted to them first before starting to build their own committee packet, which also takes a month. I'm worried that if they follow their own deadline, I will be way late in the application process.

I'm also worried that they may never send the letter at all and I'll be screened out for not meeting LOR requirements. I'm a nontrad applicant switching careers, and I don't have many science professors to fall back on as gathering potential recommenders wasn't my priority in college. And I think it'd be too late to ask someone else for a letter anyway.

 

[wysdoc]

One of my recommenders said they'd be very happy to write me a letter, and requested I write a draft letter for them to edit and send. It's now been a month since the deadline I provided them, and three months since our last communication. I've already sent them follow-up emails to no response.

What should I do in this situation? While searching here, I saw that some professors are aware of application/interview timelines and send by their own deadline. But my alma mater requires all letters to be submitted to them first before starting to build their own committee packet, which also takes a month. I'm worried that if they follow their own deadline, I will be way late in the application process.

I'm also worried that they may never send the letter at all and I'll be screened out for not meeting LOR requirements. I'm a nontrad applicant switching careers, and I don't have many science professors to fall back on as gathering potential recommenders wasn't my priority in college. And I think it'd be too late to ask someone else for a letter anyway.

See if your committee will send him a reminder. If he doesn’t respond to them, consider it a lost cause.

 

[xX_premed_Xx]

See if your committee will send him a reminder. If he doesn’t respond to them, consider it a lost cause.

The recommender has left my alma mater and now teaches at a different school, so I doubt the committee's reminder will have much weight.

I may have to consider it a lost cause, but they're one of my two science professor LORs, and it feels terrible that I'll have to give up on so many schools for something outside my control.

 

[wysdoc]

The recommender has left my alma mater and now teaches at a different school, so I doubt the committee's reminder will have much weight.

I may have to consider it a lost cause, but they're one of my two science professor LORs, and it feels terrible that I'll have to give up on so many schools for something outside my control.

Ask your committee if their committee letter is sufficient for the schools you are applying to. Sometimes if you have one, the school’s suggested number of letters are irrelevant because a committee letter takes the place of individual letters.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

The recommender has left my alma mater and now teaches at a different school, so I doubt the committee's reminder will have much weight.

I may have to consider it a lost cause, but they're one of my two science professor LORs, and it feels terrible that I'll have to give up on so many schools for something outside my control.

Can I ask how you know this if the reference has been incommunicado with you for over 3 months?

Understand that the committee letter supersedes any individual letter requirements dictated by a program (the text should be "committee letter OR individual letters..."). The Committee Letter acts as a "wild card." Consequently, work with your committee to see if they feel they need the additional letter because it potentially adds more depth to your professional or academic competencies than what they have to date. Let them make the decision, but if the missing letter is a lost cause, then so be it.

 

[xX_premed_Xx]

Can I ask how you know this if the reference has been incommunicado with you for over 3 months?

Understand that the committee letter supersedes any individual letter requirements dictated by a program (the text should be "committee letter OR individual letters...". The Committee Letter acts as a "wild card." Consequently, work with your committee to see if they feel they need the additional letter because it potentially adds more depth to your professional or academic competencies than what they have to date. Let them make the decision, but if the missing letter is a lost cause, then so be it.

That is the last time they replied to me over email. The deadline I gave them has come and gone, and it's been a month since.

Thanks for the advice on working with the committee. I've scheduled a meeting with my alma mater's premed advisor and will see what they say.

 

[polymerization]

I think they are asking how you would have come to know that they started teaching elsewhere, if presumably the last time you communicated was under the auspices of being your college professor at your school. I'm guessing you googled them.

I would guess the next question would be whether you are e-mailing their probably disabled institutional e-mail or their personal e-mail; how reasonable it is to hold them to a professional obligation tied to a previous employer (as unfair as that may feel to you); how strong your relationship was, etc. Leaving a job and starting somewhere else is a big life event in academia, especially for someone of the stature to write a recommendation letter for medical school. It's possible you got lost in the shuffle and it is even likely that it isn't personal (though the frustration would be understandable).

Unfortunately you have to assume after 3 months of silence that they are not going to write the letter. Of course I could be wrong, but I think strategically it is not a safe bet. Sometimes things come up for people, and you have to build redundancies in your process assuming you will lose some recommenders to attrition. If you choose not to, you can end up in a situation like this where you may have to make an uncomfortable decision.

If supplanting the missing letter with the committee letter doesn't work (and I think that is possible since committee letter requirements in my experience have been higher than medical school admissions base requirements for individual letters), you're running into a timing issue.

Even if you find someone else now, you still have to give them time. 2 weeks minimum. It's July. Late July into early August is not late by any means, but this drama is playing out during the time you're supposed to be sending secondaries. Even if you get the letter, you're using a committee which introduces its own process/timing bottlenecks.

Look, I know there is a lot of neuroticism around timing and "not everyone gets read in the order they are received," but I still think it should be part of the risk assessment.

Sometimes committees are very standoffish with pre-meds who can be overwhelmingly Type A and they drag their feet with everything. Maybe being complete for committee means you are queued up to the end of the line and they make you wait. You have to be ready to, on some date, whatever date feels tolerable for you, apply anyway with individual letters and bypass the committee entirely. I don't think anyone prepares you to do that because we assume every part of this machine is going to work perfectly.

Hope you stored everything in Interfolio or some external service outside of the committee. If you can't find someone and the committee will not accommodate your request, you're looking at applying next year with the third (I'm guessing) letter you needed this cycle.