FERPA rights

Paying for College
1

Hi! I’m currently trying to gather all of my documents for a local scholarship I’m applying for. It’s due Friday, and it requires 3 letters of recommendation, so I’ve planned to just have my 2 teachers and academic advisors reword their colleges letters for me, and I’ll use that.

That said- all of the materials need to be uploaded in ONE email, and I don’t know a whole lot about FERPA rights. When applying to college, I made sure to waive my rights so I wouldn’t be able to see my letters, but I don’t really have a choice for this scholarship because I have to be the one that submits it.

Are there any ramifications or consequences I’ll face because of this? The letters of recommendation will be altered to be fit for a scholarship rather than college, so maybe they could be considered different?

2

This doesn’t violate any FERPA waiver. Your teachers have always been completely free to give you copies of their recommendation letters. The FERPA waiver just means that you can’t ask the colleges to give copies of those letters to you.

3

@happymomof1 PHEW thank you so much! I was so worried and I’ve been asking around at school all day and nobody knew much about FERPA either