Request For Confidentiality Form Letter: Fill & Download for Free

I have heard of cases where a faculty member has written an honest, positive, but not glowing letter and the students were given copies, then went on a tirade — once even suing the professor — because the letters didn’t claim the students were the best ever. Meanwhile, I have heard of cases where the professor actually did say the student may have been the best in 10 years, and the students used those letters to brag and demean other students.We don’t need either kind of drama.I write letters of reference, not necessarily letters of recommendation. If I am candid in what I say in a letter I believe it will be considered more than one that is simply a bland “student is good” letter.If the student wants to have a copy, I will write a generic form letter. In rare instances I may share the letter with the student, but usually I keep it confidential.

I wondered this the whole time I was there. So, my senior year I got a copy of my file. Every form and letter that went in it had a box where I had to choose either confidential (meaning the person filling out the form or answering the request for a letter knew I would never see what they wrote) or not. I always chose not.I had good grades in high school and did well on the SAT but I was an average student at Harvard. After being above average without too much effort most of my life it was a humbling experience. At the end of it I did okay but I wanted to know what the admissions committee had seen in me.What I found fascinating about my file was the little notes - comments in the margins - in various hands and inks. They seemed to like that I was involved in a variety of things. For a small, rural high school we had our share of sports, academic, arts, and service clubs/ organizations. I did most of them except the sports. I wasn’t very athletic other than riding horses in 4h.But what really seemed to excite the commitee, (and I say this because this page had more comments than others),was how many schools I’d attended and how many places I’d lived growing up. My dad was Coast Guard and he liked being on the 180’s. Starting 9th grade was my 12th school and 15th community. Three of those, including all four years of high school, were in very small Alaskan towns.As I had learned in my psychology classes resilience is an important component to student success in adverse circumstances. Frequently moving can be put in that category. Yet I had succeeded in high school. I’d managed not only to keep my grades up; I’d also kept myself active in school & community and held down anywhere from 1–3 part time jobs each year.I believe that means that because I had seen and experienced many places and in spite of a multitude of upheaval I did extremely well the commitee figured I could handle the work at Harvard too. I don’t know if resiliency is part of the checklist, but I do know, as an alumni interviewer for many years, that personality and uniqueness seem to make a difference. And I guess I had that.Some other time I’ll go into my essay and interview! Those were definitely unique…

Very heavily, and yes the department ranking can make a difference.Most aspects of a tenure case are known to you and to the tenure committee --- your publication record, teaching evaluations, etc. However, once your department approves you for tenure review, your tenure committee requests confidential "external letters" from professors at other universities. These responses form the main "known unknowns" (in Donald Rumsfeld's terminology), while there are no "unknown unknowns", and "unknown knowns" are rare (assuming you don't have enemies among your colleagues or administration). In other words, external letters are the main potential source of surprise.When I write an external letter for someone at a top-10 university, I use tougher criteria than for people at lower-ranked universities.