I got three recommendation letters from three of my former school teachers (professors A, B, C).
On 20th Jan, I got an email from the graduate school that I had applied to. In the email, they told me that they had received the confirmations from professors A and B, but are still waiting for the confirmation from professor C.
My application will be considered as successful on condition that they have received the confrimation from professor C before 30th
I have sent at least ten emails to professor c for the past few days, but not seen any replies from him.
I have got the phone number, fax number, and address of his office in my former school.
Since my former school is a few hours by bus away from my house, and I can not reach him by emails, I am thinking to call him directly on his office phone number, but I am wondering if it will make him very angry or I may be getting scolded by him.
What shall I do?
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19Calling his office number during business hours in this case would not be out of line.– RoboKarenJan 24, 2015 at 22:28
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2maybe say something along the lines of "I'm afraid my mail were sent to spam and you haven't had a chance to read them"– AntJan 25, 2015 at 12:01
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8Just to state the obvious: Do not send someone 10 e-mails. Send one e-mail, if some does not reply after a reasonable time (3-4 working days probably) send another e-mail. If again you do not get a reply after a few days: call. Sending 10 e-mails is border-line rude. You can't spam someone into submission. :)– user8458Jan 25, 2015 at 19:41
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1"My application will be considered as successful on condition that they have received the confrimation from professor C" Am I the only one bothered by this? I mean, does this make any sense?– o0'.Jan 26, 2015 at 1:03
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2@Lohoris it is. Unfortunately, it is also quite common. In some cases, the student is responsible for making sure everything is sent on time, but without being given any information on the progress.– DavidmhJan 27, 2015 at 19:07
2 Answers
There are a couple of possible scenarios at work:
- Instructor C is very busy, but has seen the emails and will write the recommendation in time.
- Instructor C's email program flagged your emails as spam, and has not actually read any of them.
- Instructor C has not read your emails for whatever reason.
Regardless of which case applies, a polite call to instructor C during normal business hours (whatever those happen to be for the university) would be considered perfectly acceptable.
If you cannot get a hold of the instructor directly, perhaps there is an administrative assistant who can help you by flagging down the instructor, or setting up a time for you to talk to the instructor directly.
I think you have made a mistake sending him so many E-mails. Nevertheless, its always okay to call someone and ask something politely (If the prof. C is sane you should be okay).