To Waive or to Not Waive

You’re reading an excerpt of Admitted by Soundarya Balasubramani. Written by an Ivy League graduate from India, this is the proven guide for students worldwide looking to pursue undergraduate or graduate study abroad in the U.S., Canada, or Europe. Purchase for instant access to the guide and other exclusive resources—including sample SOPs, sample resumes, scholarship lists, and a private community with other readers.

Every university you apply to will display the following message in the letter of recommendation section of the application.* This gives you the choice to either waive or not waive your right to view the recommendation submitted by the professor (or whoever you asked).

That question above is asking, Do you waive the right to request access to the information provided by your references?

Have you wondered why this question is being asked?

We did.

A landmark law titled Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) was signed into law by President Ford on August 21, 1974:*

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) is a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education.

FERPA gives parents certain rights with respect to their children’s education records. These rights transfer to the student when he or she reaches the age of 18 or attends a school beyond the high school level.

Surprisingly, the law went into effect without offering the chance to be heard by those who were impacted by its enactment. There were no public hearings asking for testimonials from the institutions it affected. The only reasoning offered* by the senator who enforced it was that it was in response to “the growing evidence of the abuse of student records across the nation.”

This shocked schools and universities across the nation.

One of the main concerns of the law were the letters of recommendation written by professors under the assumption of confidentiality thus far.

Did the students have the right to read them all under FERPA? What if the student wanted a sentence to be corrected? Can students sue the professor or the institution for wrongly stating a fact? Some of these questions were put to rest when amendments were made to the hastily enacted law on December 31, 1974. It barred students from accessing any letters written prior to January 1, 1975.

Since then, FERPA has undergone many revisions, offering more leeway for schools to disclose the personal information of students to certain entities (such as a school they transfer to or the law enforcement when requested under a subpoena).

Today, it is mandatory for universities to give you the choice to either view the recommendation or waive your right to view it.

We strongly feel you should waive your right to view it, i.e. choose yes in the screenshot shown earlier, for the following reasons:

• Recommender’s view: Someone who you carefully chose and someone who agreed to recommend you is not a person who would write a bad letter (or hopefully, a badly written letter). Many recommenders would draw comparisons between you and other students in their letter.* If they know you can read that at a later date, they would resort to a rather vague and insipid letter with little specificity. By waiving your right and letting them know you did that, you also establish a level of trust with the other person, which will help your case further.

• Institution’s view: The university gives you the right to view because they have to. It doesn’t mean they encourage that behavior. Not waiving your right can be seen as a mild red flag for universities who might reach one or more of the following conclusions:

  a. the letter is not candid since it was not written under the assumption of confidentiality,

  b. the student might have played a part in writing the letter, or

  c. the student must have a moral obligation to exercise this right.

If that isn’t enough reason, you might not learn what you’re looking for even when you read the letter, since it would be out of context. Unless you read all the other letters written by your recommender, any conclusion you draw would be inaccurate.

That is why we ask you to waive the right and choose yes for that question.

However, if you choose to view it for personal reasons, notify your recommender of this decision explicitly when you ask them to write you a letter.