School counselors Stephanie Nelson and Richard Tench give the same mission when they are asked to recommend a letter of recommendation to their rising seniors: take the “brand” sheet and fill it with challenges they have overcome or are proud of, and return it to the counselor to help guide the writing.
It is a common counseling technique. It also helps counselors connect student outcomes to generic AI tools to create letters of recommendation.
“I'm not taking away the personal part. I'm still using proven counselling techniques and skills and reinforce what I already have in mind,” says Nelson, a school counselor in North Carolina. “I joked with a student who said, 'This is great.' “ChatGpt helped me.” ”
While students have already turned to AI to help everything from learning support to mental health needs, there is an increasingly wider crack between the number of students and the number of counselors available in the school, the Generation AI can be presented as a tool to help both groups play a role in completing university applications.
“I plugged in to AI to help strengthen letters. Sometimes, sometimes I get stuck – when you have to write hundreds of letters a year, sometimes I get stuck,” he estimates that he writes 120 to 150 letters of recommendation each year at his school in West Virginia. “It's definitely a handy tool. It helps you tweak your resume, but you can also tweak the letter to show you what's best among the students.”
How popular is this use?
While many headlines have been written about student generative AI use and institutional concerns, the issue of school counselors using it to support the university entrance process has been rarely proposed.
There is not much data on that particular use. The American School Counselors Association told Edsurge it would not follow it.
For counselors who are growing in number of students, Nelson sees around 380 students, while Tench calls himself “lucky” at a 275:1 ratio. AI tools can reduce your own load slightly.
But there are mixed opinions on this. In the focus group of Fushner10, an educational and research institute, conversations swirled between technician teachers and novice counterparts, revealing harsh differences in AI usage.
“The reaction of a teacher who is already an AI-Forward can be shocked or surprised, like, “Really? Will they use it for something like a letter of recommendation?” ”
That discussion led to a 2024 study, finding about one of three students and teachers who were self-reported using some form of generative artificial intelligence to write university essays and letters of recommendation. Divanji, co-author of the study, acknowledged that it is likely that the number has risen since the data was first collected in the spring of 2024.
“Students wanted to try out the tools, but they wanted to do it at boundaries, and no one was helping them understand what those boundaries were,” she says.
The study found that students were first looking for help from their parents, then heading to teachers and counselors. For first-generation students whose parents didn't attend college, or for students who couldn't afford an expensive college admissions coach who could run hundreds of dollars an hour, “it makes sense to support them towards this tool afterwards,” says Divanji.
Apply to the university using AI ethically
GuardRails must be included for usage. Hannah Quay-De La Vallee, a senior engineer at the Center for Democracy & Technology, encourages students to first write their essay and then be specific to their requests.
If you say “Write my essay,” it says, “Please help me come up with a statement of the paper” or “Please help me come up with my introduction paragraph,” then “My introduction paragraph doesn't have enough punch.” “If you can make more targeted tasks better, keep an eye on errors and biases.”
She also encourages both students and faculty to see exactly the tools they use to help. Many education technology companies promote their own solutions, which are “ChatGpt wrappers, or Gemini and Claude wrappers.”
“To be honest, I'm just using ChatGpt at that point,” she adds.
Both Tench and Nelson say they expect the same things from their students in advance when it comes to using AI. The best use is to help with brainstorming and tweaking ideas.
Additionally, each expert gave reminders to help educators and students first check both high school and university AI policies. The university is mixed by allowing students to use AI in their applications.
AI policies are often hyperlinked in admission applications, but Tench says they can dig deeper into finding them.
“We follow not only our policies as a school, but our policies at universities to ensure that we follow those guidelines. It's part of our ethical and responsible use of AI for very important students,” he says. “For some people, that's difficult because AI is an easy way to do it, but the longer it gets, the more intentional and systematic they feel.
