Help! Coalition FERPA question! Don't want to lose a recommendation!

Before we approved a request to add a recommendation, we must have missed a checkbox to waive rights to view! The recommendation has been submitted (I swear we haven’t looked at it and don’t even know how!) We received a bit of a reprimand (rightly so!) from the recommender and apologized. We don’t know how to change. Please help! We submitted a ticket and scoured the tutorials to no avail.

For the Common App, I know that you cannot make the change yourself and the Common App support people have to do it. I will assume, since you’ve already looked, that it is the same for the Coalition App.

I hope you are right. We made a support ticket and haven’t heard anything yet.

A Coalition rep responded and said, there was nothing they could do. We should have caught that before we hit “invite.” Which of course, is the entire point. We didn’t. They said we would have to delete the recommendation and risk not obtaining it a second time… which luckily worked out for us… the recommender resubmitted. The Common App has been a bit easier to navigate for us and available to help answer questions. Hoping this doesn’t affect other submissions.

Ime, this is not something adcoms will penalize you for. Some kids don’t waive, some hs don’t press the issue. The LoR is what it is.

Our hs talked about the waiver leaving teachers feel freer to be honest, not worrying you’ll see the rec and dispute it. That’s a front end concern. You haven’t seen it, haven’t complained.

You could call the college and ask if they care. If so, you can send an email stating he missed the checkbox, has not seen the LoR. My guess is you’re fine. Ime, adcoms care more about the content of a rec.

I agree with @lookingforward that it’s not a big deal. And I’ll also point out that waiving FERPA means that the student can see the recs for the college he is attending only, If you’re rejected or choose not to attend, waiving FERPA does not mean you get to see those letters.

I will just add my opinion to @lookingforward 's comment.

Change “you” in the above with “he” as he is the one applying to college.

I was working on D19 Coalition App last night and had this discussion in mind. I did not see anywhere on there where you waive your FERPA rights. It did not jump out at me like it did on the Common App.

I gotta say, I started playing around in the Coalition Appto see for myself, and I noticed the same thing. The Common App really makes it clear, but it seems really subtle (so subtle that I have yet to find it) on the Coalition App. So, I would presume that the OP’s kid is not the first one that messed this up. A bit of a design flaw IMO. The OP and her kid really shouldn’t worry about it.

Thanks everyone. It turned it ok for my son because the recommender was kind. However, I caution applicants using Coalition to be aware that they have to check that box, apparently, with each contact they invite.