Question about confidential letters?

[Tachymeter]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

I know that a lot of schools give evaluation forms that you have to sign the confidentiality agreement and then give these to your letter writers. Well what if your letter writers use their own letters and send them in. Are the schools to assume that they are confidential, or is there something else you have to do? Mine are all confidential as I haven't seen them, I signed all the forms saying I would release access to them, but my letter writers wrote their own letters on professional stationary, so the signed confidential forms won't be with them. Does that matter? Is it assumed that they are confidential if they are sent out this way? Thanks for your imput.

 

[Amy B]

I had the same thing occur. Here's what I did. I gave my letter writer a self addressed, stamped envelope and wrote the following info across the back of teh envelope where it will be sealed......."This letter was kept confidential from the applicant and they do not know of it's contents." I then drew a line across the seal and wrote the word signature next to it. I showed my letter writer what I had done and asked them to be sure to sign it before they sent it. This worked for all the schools that I applied to.

 

[SmallTownEMT]

I had my letters sent directly to the pre-med committe and my school's career advisement center, having previously signed paperwork saying that I would not see them. From there the composite letter and all individual letters were sent. I'm not sure if you have access to such a service, but if you do I never had problems with it.