Under a LOT of stress and not sure what to do.

[Kenna5027]

I posted here a little over a month ago about my major stresses with grad school - namely asking for references to reply. I got a lot of really awesome replies and am thankful. Some of my stress was alleviated, but I'm still having problems and I have no idea how to approach it.

I had one reference who was awesome and wrote for me very quickly. I have another who delayed a bit, but once I got into contact with her was happy to write me the reference as well. I have two others that I am having major problems with, but the deadlines have already passed and I don't know if they wrote for me or not.

One is my college advisor who told me she would write, but I kept getting updates that she hadn't. I reminded her, she said she'd been busy and was doing it, but then I never heard anything else. Another was my job supervisor - she was very happy to write one for me, but I got updates that said she hadn't. I contacted *her* again and she said she'd been busy but now had a lot of time on her hands and was sitting down to write them. I know she hasn't written one yet (this college was happy to give me an extension on the reference letters) but I'm not sure about the other.

I know for a fact these could be submitted online and were not hard to write. One was just answering five prewritten questions, ranking me on a scale of 1-5 in different areas.

I just don't know what I'm going to do if I don't get into grad school, but especially if it is because I didn't have complete applications. The ship has sailed at this point, and I am constantly having panic attacks, not sure what to do. I submitted everything that I possibly could in a timely matter, and I tried to send reminders without driving them up the wall. I would have found others if I could, but when you submit your materials they ask you specifically who is writing, and that cannot be changed.

I fear I am going to end up jobless and alone - and somehow worse, that my friends and family are going to be incredibly disappointed in me. I just can't take it - I've always been the responsible one and now that life is hitting me hard in the face, I am a disaster.

I guess I'm just looking for help and advice. I don't know what to do. I don't want to talk to my family about it because I think they'll just be angry with me, and when I talked to a close friend about it (who will also be applying for grad school soon and is confused about her life) she just asked me why I hadn't contacted them more frequently. Maybe I made a mistake, I don't know?

Sorry this is so long.

[Oosh]

Hiya

Yes I remember replying to your previous post. Sorry to hear those two are letting you down. That sounds pretty out of order. I wouldn't say it's your fault.
Have you ran out of time to get the references in now then ?
I wish I knew more about the process so I could help more.

I think I'd be asking the advice of people waiting for the references or whoever is offering support in that area. This must surely be a common thing for people to struggle getting together the references, especially if they've done everything they can but the referees just aren't giving the reference.
Tell them your predicament, plead for advice or an extension.
Is there anyway you could find a new reference as the ones you've chosen are letting you down.

Student support, surely there is somewhere you can go to get help and advice with this situation. It must happen a lot.

I'd tell my parents too. They may moan yes but I think you've done everything you can. There's nothing for them to moan about. You've chosen references, chased them up. Maybe they will see the urgency and give you some help.
I think you NEED some help !

What I did find when reading up on the subject was people asking what about references if it's been years since college. And it sounds like even if you've missed the boat this time you can do something for a year and get a reference from that, IF you have to. So don't worry too much. If you've been unlucky this time I'm sure you'll ultimately get to where you want to be.

Keep posting. Hopefully someone here will have some experience.
Post on student forums too !

Hang in there.

[Kenna5027]

Thanks for the response, again :). Yes, I can wait and do something in a year or even 6 months....I just feel a bit helpless and its really hard for me to admit failure even if its not totally my fault. At this point its kind of wait and see as I don't know who else I would ask. I'm trying to just have a bit of faith but I'm sure you know as well as I do that it can be hard sometimes.