Blog – Tagged "college admissions advice"

Why AI Recommendation Letters Get Rejected (And What Actually Works Instead)

AI-generated recommendation letters have a "voice" — vague praise, repeated sentence structures, zero specific memories — and readers pick up on it fast, even without a detector.
Admissions committees and hiring managers read hundreds of these things a year. They know what a template sounds like.
Detection tools aren't even the main problem. The bigger issue is that generic letters just don't do the job a recommendation letter is supposed to do.
If you're going to use AI in the process, the fix isn't avoiding it entirely — it's making sure the final version doesn't read like a...

Pick someone who actually knows your work, not just the person with the fanciest title.
Ask early. Two to four weeks minimum. Last-minute requests put people in a bad spot.
Ask in person or over a real conversation first, then follow up in writing with specifics.
Give them a "brag sheet" — your resume, the role or program you're applying to, and a few concrete accomplishments they can reference.
Make it stupid easy to say yes: deadline, submission method, formatting requirements, all spelled out.
Say thank you. Then say it again when you land the thing.
If you...