Is it true I can request copies of my college application, letters of recommendation?

College Life
1

<p>Someone told me that I could request copies of my application materials and that my alma mater would either be obliged to comply or likely comply. Does anyone know if that’s true? If it is, will I need to prove that I have a good reason to want the copies or is an admission of curiosity good enough?</p>

2

<p>Um… Concerning the letters of recommendation: I think their is a confidentiality agreement you either signed or didn’t sign when you sent your app in. (I’m pretty sure it’s on the Common App.) If you didn’t sign it, you can look at it. If you did, I don’t know.</p>

<p>I signed it because I didn’t really want to know what my recs said. If you’re doing this because you get denied from a few schools, just leave it behind you.</p>

3

<p>sunshowers, this is regarding the application and letters of recommendation that got me accepted to the school I went to. My main concern is reading my letters of recommendation, but if that’s not possible it’s not a matter of life or death.</p>

4

<p>When you applied (at least when I applied) there was a box you could choose to check that relinquished your rights to ever see these letters. If you checked that box (we were told by all our teachers to do so as they said it might ring alarm bells in Admissions if we didn’t), then obviously you can’t see them. If you didn’t, there’s the chance that your particular college doesn’t keep these letters–some do, some don’t. If they do, yes, you should be able to request to see them.</p>

5

<p>bluejj,</p>

<p>As sunshower said, if you had to do the Common App for that school, there was a portion of it that discussed seeing those recommendations. You had to either check that you agreed to keep them confidential or that you may want to see them someday (as I did with mine.)</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

6

<p>It was so many years ago, I don’t remember if there was a box or if I checked it or didn’t check it. One thing that I’m sure of is that I didn’t use the common application. I guess I’ll need to call the school and ask them to dig through my records to see if I checked the box or not.</p>

7

<p>why do you want to read the recommendations that got you into a school years ago?</p>

8

<p>Curiosity, but if they are going to grill me then I should either not bother requesting copies of anything or come up with a good excuse.</p>