From Quora: My answer to "Can you read your teacher recommendations?"

Yes. I can think of three ways you could see those recommendations. Two ways are easy and one way is hard. The easy way is simply to ask the teacher if she or he will show you the recommendation. It would seem she or he should not mind, especially after they’ve submitted it to the college, so it’s not as though you can change it or decide not to use that recommendation.


If the teacher is trusting enough to let YOU mail the recommendation, then you obviously can read it, as long as they don’t seal the envelope with a signature across the seal, or using some other method where you couldn’t simply open the envelope and re-seal it (as unethical and illegal as that would be - it’s illegal to open other people’s mail, and the college is the recipient, not you).


Finally, if you attend college in the U.S., federal law requires schools to allow you to see anything in your educational files, including but not limited to your college applications. (DISCLAIMER: I am not your attorney, so this isn’t legal advice - see a lawyer if you need advice for a real legal problem.) I know I read, in Time magazine, about a Stanford alumnus who used that law to gain access to his admissions file, and published some of his more cringeworthy essay portions. Something like “I’d be an awesome party dude and score lots of babes,” if I recall correctly.