<p>In School Forms section, one item asks about whether I waive my right to access to school forms. If I choose not to waive it, will this choice adversely affect my application?</p>
<p>Just about everyone waives their rights. Everyone post I’ve seen with a recommendation about FERPA suggests that yes, you should waive your rights. </p>
<p>Here’s one relevant thread:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/common-application/1013426-guide-ferpa-rights.html?highlight=waive+rights[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/common-application/1013426-guide-ferpa-rights.html?highlight=waive+rights</a></p>
<p>Yes - it’s the electronic equivalent of the school asking that your teacher send your recommendation in a sealed envelope.</p>
<p>Waive your rights! I didn’t and now I am in a bit of a pickle.</p>
<p>But what should I do if I have selected not to waive it?
Thanks!</p>
<p>You can change it by emailing The Common App Support team and explaining to them your situation - they will give you a tool to reset it. However, if one of your counselors or recommenders has already submitted their reference, you cannot change it.</p>
<p>^ Can not waiving your right be that bad? As an international student, the sole reason I did not waive my rights, is that I felt that, you know, that this was too good a privilege to let it go unused. Plus, I thought that this would be a good way of showing colleges that my teachers, not me, wrote the recs and that I did not even see them before sending them off.</p>
<p>^ Can not waiving your right be that bad? As an international student, the sole reason I did not waive my rights, is that I felt that, you know, that this was too good a privilege to let it go unused. Plus, I thought that this would be a good way of showing colleges that my teachers, not me, wrote the recs and that I did not even see them before they were sent off. Many international students (at least from India), actually do not get their teachers/counselor to write their recs and therefore, write them themselves.</p>
<p>Your recs aren’t weighted so heavily (by some schools, not all follow this precedent) when you don’t waive your rights because colleges will assume that you have influenced your teachers to write better ones that you deserve.</p>
<p>So what you said is contradictory debarghya - you said you did not waive rights so that they will think your teachers wrote the recs, but the case is the opposite. By waiving your rights, you will show that the teachers actually wrote the recs.</p>
<p>^ There are students who actually write their own recs and then waive their right to access them! Whereas honest students who just use this to make sure that their teachers don’t overlook their duties get less of a look from colleges. Not all counselors are dedicated to their students,ya know. (Although, in general, teachers are awesome people) </p>
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<p>If you meant ‘better ones than you deserve’ then it’s different. Otherwise, isn’t this a good thing? </p>
<p>If this action is interpreted as an action aimed at pressurizing teachers, then I guess I had a very different view on this. I did not waive my right. Should I contact Common App now? I’m still a little disinclined to do so though, because I still don’t feel that colleges should pay any less attention to recs because the person for whom they are written for chose not to waive their rights to access them in the distant future.</p>
<p>You have to waive your rights - otherwise you’ll be looked upon with scorn and disbelief. It’s unfortunate because you are completely in the hands of your recommenders and counselor, with no way of knowing whether they’ve taken care of you or left you hanging out to dry. Granted, you need to know if these people have a positive opion of you before asking for their help, at least the recommenders since you are stuck with the counselor. But for such an important input, you’d think you would have the opportunty to review a portion of the documents.</p>
<p>YES YES YES YES YES.</p>
<p>You will be seen as covering something up if you do not, and seriously no one’s going to write horrible things about you anyway.</p>
<p>When I first filled it out I chose not to waive my right, but then quickly decided that I wanted to waive it and all I had to do was contact the Common App support team and explain. They corrected the problem for me in less than 10 minutes and it wasn’t a problem at all, so I suggest if someone wants to change their response they should contact Common App as soon as possible and they’ll simply fix it for you.</p>
<p>They can change it as long as no school forms have been submitted yet</p>
<p>What if I create another version of the application. Can I waive my rights in that ? ( I’ve already sent the application to one college )</p>
<p>from another thread I found these posts addressing this problem…</p>
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<p>and…
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<p>I’m an international student and I did not waive my right to access. Is that a bad thing? I chose not to waive my right, not because I don’t trust the teachers/counselors (In fact, I trust them, they are wonderful people) but because they are not acquainted to the Common Application system and I had to explain to them how this works.</p>
<p>I did not waive my right, is this going to impair my application or prevent me from getting a college or something?? </p>
<p>Thank you</p>
<p>some people here say that since i do not waive my right, this will be seen as a sign of scorn towards the teacher. The problem is that my teachers have already signed my school forms. As I mentioned earlier, I do trust them. I cant make them sign all these papers again! I simply thought that maybe someday I would want to see this forms again or it was my right not to waive it, a privilege.</p>
<p>I so hope, this won’t affect adversely my application!</p>
<p>This thing is will CERTAINLY not make or break ur application. Don’t worry people.</p>
<p>Thank you very very much. I’ve read and heard so many rumors about not waiving your right that i don’t know what is true or not!</p>
<p>College confidential has been very helpful! Thank you compscifan!</p>