Recommenders & FERPA

This process should take approximately 10 – 25  minutes.

Items marked with a red asterisk * are required. Students are not required to complete items that do not have the red asterisk.

Introduction

In this section, you will:

  • Understand the waiver and decide whether to waive your FERPA rights
  • Understand the role of in admissions

Preview

This is an example of the Recommenders & FERPA  page of Common App.

Videos

In this video, we discuss the FERPA waiver. FERPA is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. This FERPA form must be completed before you can access the Letters of Recommendation section of Common App. The purpose of this video is to explain the purpose of the FERPA Release and your options in completing this form. This video should take approximately 3 minutes.

Completing the FERPA Waiver in Common App

In this video, we discuss the Letters of Recommendation section of Common App. Different high schools have different procedures for sending letters of recommendation to colleges. The purpose of this video is to help you learn if a college requires letters of recommendation, how many to send, and which teachers to ask. Finally, we provide tips for how to ask your teacher for letters of recommendation. This video should take approximately 5 minutes.

Completing the Recommenders Section in Common App

Tips & Reminders

  • If you “waive your right to review all recommendations and supporting documents,” it means that your teacher’s letter of recommendation will remain a private letter of communication to the college. You will not know what the recommender said about you.
  • Although it is ultimately your decision, many professional counselors suggest that students waive their right to review recommendations and supporting documents.
  • Some colleges do not require or accept letters of recommendation from teachers. To find out if a college requires or accepts letters of recommendation, go to the My Colleges tab of Common App, click on the college name on the left, and scroll down the page to find Recommendations.
  • Different high schools use different electronic platforms to submit letters of recommendation to the colleges. Your high school might not use Common App to send recommendations to colleges. Ask your high school counselor how your school handles letters of recommendation.
  • Your school might have specific procedures for inviting recommenders. Ask your high school counselor if your school has a special procedure for requesting letters of recommendation.
  • Sometimes teachers will ask students to create a “brag sheet,” which is a document with information about the student that a teacher can use to write a letter of recommendation. Learn about the type of information a teacher might find useful with this guide from Johns Hopkins University – Brag Sheet Questions for Teachers.

License

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AXS Companion by OSU Ecampus & IECA is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.