Letter of Rec. not sent, should I rescind?

[Cygnus_A]

Fortunately I asked for four letters of recommendation for my PhD applications. One of the four has not sent any letters in and has not responded to my emails asking about them.

Since all of the schools that I applied to require a minimum of two or three, I don't believe my applications are in peril. I'm just wondering if I should rescind the letter requests for this professor. Do you think it would reduce my chances of admission if I were to not rescind the letter (so I would just have an unreceived fourth letter)? Or would it be better to remove the recommender from the list?

 

[myranaira]

I feel like it would be better to remove the person from the list. I feel like the schools wouldn't have a record of the fact that you put someone's name in, but then changed/deleted it. Those sorts of changes can happen for any reason.

 

[Choppy]

I find it odd that the schools have specified that they would like more than three reference letters. Three is commonly what is required. There are no bonus points for additional letters.

Is it possible that these schools actually only require three and this professor saw that you already had three references?

 

[Cygnus_A]

I find it odd that the schools have specified that they would like more than three reference letters. Three is commonly what is required. There are no bonus points for additional letters.

Is it possible that these schools actually only require three and this professor saw that you already had three references?

Correct. There is a minimum of three for most of them, but they all allow more to be sent (as a backup or extra letter). In my case, I added four, and one of the four has not been sent (post-deadline). I'm just wondering if it's bad to have an unsent (but unneeded) fourth letter. I'm thinking that maybe I should remove/rescind the four letter that has not been sent.