<p>First of all, reading this thread should provide comfort to those who did not waive their rights under FERPA. Look at how many of you didn’t waive them!</p>
<p>Second, why wouldn’t you waive your rights? Are you really going to go to the trouble of requesting to see your recommendations? After you’ve been accepted? Why would you care? You’re giving up a right you are never going to exercise – so, you’re not actually giving up anything. By the same token, the fact that you didn’t sign the waiver doesn’t change the fact that 99.99% of you won’t ever bother to look at these recommendations. The fact that the legal right still exists for some of you doesn’t change the more critical fact that about 14 people in all of the U.S. will bother to exercise that legal right. So, on the one hand, you have a pool of applicants who can’t look at their recommendations. And, on the other hand, you have a pool of applicants who can look at their recommendations but – except for 14 of you – never will. Is there really any difference here? And is it enough of one for an admission officer to cling to a general impression of the first pool that is diametrically opposite from the impression s/he has of the other pool?</p>
<p>Third, the fact that a college openly says that recommendations with waivers are generally more credible than recommendations without waivers does not mean that there’s something of value being given. The waiver is still effective. Those colleges are simply explaining what should be obvious: a recommendation made in strict confidence is likely to be more candid and frank. Alerting you to this reality does not invalidate the waiver.</p>
<p>But…that “logic” leads me to the fourth and final point: college admission offices that make the above assumption are just being silly because recommendations made with waivers are not the same as recommendation made in strict confidence. Not even close. And that’s why few admission offices actually make that assumption. (They may tell you that, to encourage you to sign the waiver…but I don’t think they’re so gullible and naive to actually believe what they’re telling you.) Admissions officers know full well that plenty of people sign the waiver and, with the full consent of the recommenders, review and discuss the recommendations with their teachers before the recommendations are sent to the colleges. Remember: the waiver is not a promise that you’ll never see the recommendation. It just says you won’t make the college release it to you. Your recommenders may still share the recommendations with you. And that happens frequently. And everyone knows it happens frequently. Even when the waiver has been signed. So the signed waivers do not provide any insurance or indication to the colleges that the recommendations were made in confidence. And that means there’s no logical reason to think that they’re more candid and frank than recommendations without the waiver. Frankly, if I was an admission officer and trying to draw conclusions from the presence of a waiver, I’d have to conclude that the people who did NOT sign the waiver are less likely to have seen the recommendations beforehand and are incredibly unlikely to actually exercise their non-waived rights later on…so I’d have more confidence in the candor of that group of recommendations than the ones WITH the waivers.</p>
<p>Bottom line: If, for whatever reason, you didn’t sign the waiver, you should chill out…because any admission office that dings you for not signing the waiver works for a college you probably don’t want to attend. And because I just don’t see that actually happening. I think the waiver’s there to encourage the oddball high school teacher who insists on it to write needed recommendations but – beyond that – I don’t think colleges pay it much attention unless and until the oddball student comes along and asks to see the recommendations.</p>
<p>That said, just go ahead and sign the darn thing. Even though, at this particular point in time, being able to peek at your application file probably seems terribly important to you, it won’t matter at all once you graduate high school. By then you’ll be headed off to college and you won’t be looking back. You’ll only be embarrassed later on if you think back at the idea that you might want to see what high school teachers wrote about you, so spare yourself that internal embarrassment and sign it.</p>
Is there a way I could fix this?</p>
I just e-mailed some of the schools I’m applying to this year. Oh no, I am so worried right now. I really wish that Common App had made the rules more clear. I would have totally waived my rights if it meant that I could have a better chance! I don’t want to see my recs right now-only after I graduate high school! UGH!</p>