Senior Michaela Szabo was recently accepted into Stanford University, arguably the most selective school in the nation. She was among the mere 5 percent of applicants to the college that were admitted.
“I was very, very surprised and very, very happy. I actually cried a lot, and I don’t cry very much,” Szabo said. “I didn’t think I would get in at any point in the application process. I wasn’t even going to apply, but my parents told me I should because I’ve liked Stanford for so long.”
Recently, more students that have been accepted into colleges have been requesting their admission files, including the assessments that admissions officers gave of applicants among other parts of their application. Schools are bound to comply by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which protects student privacy. However, this regulation only applies to accepted applicants, so those who are rejected are not obligated to receive information from colleges.
This trend is especially prevalent at highly selective colleges. In fact, the ability to request admission documents was brought to light by the Fountain Hopper, an anonymous newsletter run by Stanford students.
Suzanne Eckes, associate professor at Indiana University’s School of Education, has published numerous academic

articles on school law. Especially since the ability to request admission files only applies to accepted students, to whom the privilege is less useful, she said FERPA has distinct limitations.
Eckes said, “It’s an interesting law, and it’s needed to protect documents and educational records, but I think people view it a little more broadly than it is.”
Szabo said she also sees no reason why a student would want to request these files after being accepted.
“I’d rather just go in thinking they just liked me as a whole,” Szabo said. “It’s kind of just scary, what was going through their minds when they were reading the application, and I don’t really see any advantage to me for doing that.”
If requests for letters of recommendation, which are part of the college application, became common, the integrity of these letters may become diluted in order to not hurt or offend students who happened to see their letters. CHS college counselor Ann Boldt said there are easier ways to deal with issues in the letters.
“I guess the thing that would be fair for me, of the teacher, would be upfront saying, ‘I don’t think I could write a good letter for you.’ That’s what needs to be done,” Boldt said.
Boldt recommends that students always waive their right to see their letters of recommendation. This allows teachers to be freely honest and give a true evaluation of a student.
Eckes said, being a professor, she often has to make admission decisions for people to get into her school’s graduate program. She said she takes into account whether or not students waive their right.
“When I’m on an admissions committee and someone submits their application into a PhD program, if the student doesn’t waive their right to see the letter of recommendation, I hold that against them,” Eckes said. “I don’t take those letters as seriously.”
While admission documents may be interesting for students to see, Szabo said she does not think that the increasing number of people requesting their admission records will affect the admission process.
Szabo said, “I think what people are looking for is some sort of formula to try and get in, and there really just isn’t one. Even if you followed exactly what I did, and you lived a life exactly like mine, I still don’t think that would guarantee you admission in the future, because it really depends on what other applicants have done, what their application pool is like and what Stanford wants at that point.”
In general, Szabo said she thinks some people just worry too much about admissions.
She said, “I just think it’s really important that people don’t get caught up in trying to figure out what a university wants from you. You should just do what you like to do.”