Hello! I thought I might get a head start on my Common Application. I’ve added a few schools to my Dashboard. As you all probably already know, under each school there a section for “Recommenders and FERPA,” where I can invite teachers and others to send in their recommendation letters for me. I’m sort of confused about the placement of this section. Do my recommenders have to send their letters separately to each school I’m applying to, or do they all get sent to my CA account, where I then get to apply them to each college? I just assumed the section for these rec letters would appear once on the app, not separately under the tabs of each school.
Also, would it be rude to ask my recommender to see their letter, since my rights to view it online have been waived and going through them is the only way I can have my curiosity satiated? Is the waiving of my FERPA rights primarily in place because counselors don’t want students to see possibly negative comments about themselves? Some schools only allow 2 non-teacher recs, and I would be having 3. I would like to be able to choose the best ones- is there a way to do that?
The teachers get an invite from the common app to write their recommendations for you after you have indicated their email address on the app. They submit it once, and it goes to all your schools.
IMHO do not ask to see your recommendation letter(s). Waive your FERPA rights. You should be choosing teachers that will write a positive letter about you. It’s not a time to pick and choose. Waiving your FERPA rights gives the teacher much more leeway to write an honest letter on your behalf. If adcoms see that you didn’t waive FERPA, then they don’t really know if the recommendation is an honest and true letter on your behalf.