Waiting for a letter of recommendation can be painful, especially if the deadline for it is fast approaching. This article will look at some suitable ways you can email your professor to follow up on your letter of recommendation to make sure they’ll complete it.
The preferred emails are “just a quick note to thank you,” “if you don’t mind, would you be able to,” and “the deadline for submitting the recommendation is approaching.” Each of these tackles the problem in a different way, but they all remain polite and calm with your professor.
“Just a quick note to thank you” works well to start the email. It shows that you’re appreciative that your professor has decided to write you a letter of recommendation. “Have you had a chance” then allows you to get an update on the current status.
This phrase works well at the start of an email to show that you’re thankful but eager to learn more.
“If you don’t mind, would you be able to” is a simple way to ask anybody to help you or to get around to working on something. You can use this with your professor to ask them to get to work on your recommendation letter.
Usually, they would have already agreed to write it. You would use something like this to start your email when you would like to know if they’ve completed it, or if they needed a reminder before getting around to it.
This opener works well if you’re worried about missing the deadline for the recommendation letter. It gives your professor a sense of urgency to complete the letter without demanding that they finish it on time for you.
Nobody wants to miss a deadline, including professors. Most decent professors would get to work on your letter immediately if they found out that the deadline was coming up sooner rather than later.
You can ask this question if you think there might be extra information that could help your professor. Letters of recommendation are ways for a professor to write all the positive qualities about you. Providing them with helpful information could aid this.
For example, if you provide them with some of your most recent work, it’ll allow them to speak about your current abilities and your dedication. These can be excellent to include in a positive letter of recommendation.
“I understand that you’re very busy” is a great way to introduce an email to a professor. It shows that you appreciate they have a busy working day, but you still need something from them that might take up some time.
That’s where the “but” comes in. It allows you to segue into asking about your letter. Hopefully, this will encourage them to start working on it as soon as they can.
You can use this one to check whether your professor has had the time to do the letter. Of course, most people know that professors are busy, so it would help to ask the polite question, “have you had a chance.”
This allows you to find out whether your professor has gotten around to the letter. If they haven’t, it might serve as a good reminder that you need it, as the deadline might be approaching.
You can ask this question if you’re looking for an indirect update in some way. You might not be expecting them to complete the letter right away, but you would at least like to know what stage they’re currently at in the writing process.
This is a great question to ask to keep communication with your professor open. It shows that you’re willing to start a conversation and you don’t mind a few back-and-forth emails.
You can use this informal email opener to show that you’d like to learn about the status of your recommendation letter. If your professor is happy to email you in this way, they might let you know that they haven’t had the time to start it yet.
Hopefully, if you’re able to email your professor informally, it means you have a good relationship with them. This should be all you need to rely on to make sure they get your letter done in time.
Instead of sending an email to your professor, you might be better off just going to see them. If you’re worried that they haven’t had a chance to get around to your letter of recommendation, then you should see them in person to discuss it.
Generally, a professor can be quite busy. They will have a lot of work piling up every day, so it can be fairly common to forget about something like a recommendation letter.
If you went to their office to let them know that you’re still waiting on it, it might help them to get around to it sooner rather than later. It’s more effective in most cases than sending them an email, especially since they can sit on that email for weeks without realizing it’s there.
Above everything else, it gives it more of a personal touch. It shows that you would really appreciate them getting around to completing your letter of recommendation.
We recommend visiting them during office hours to check in on them. They might be busy, but it’s worth finding out what’s happening.
Martin holds a Master’s degree in Finance and International Business. He has six years of experience in professional communication with clients, executives, and colleagues. Furthermore, he has teaching experience from Aarhus University. Martin has been featured as an expert in communication and teaching on Forbes and Shopify. Read more about Martin here.
