How does LetterWise work?

LetterWise helps everyone write better letters of recommendation for students and do it faster using AI technology.

Using letter writing best practices, LetterWise prompts you to answer a few key questions about the student applicant that are of most interest to college admissions. LetterWise then uses an AI knowledge engine to summarize your student profile information, eliminating any redundancy and writes a 1-page draft letter.

Once you make any desired edits, LetterWise will use AI to suggest improvements and score your letter. You can go back and edit your profile questions or letter and get a new score. When you are done, download your student profile, letter and evaluation on your computer.

Because you get a unique letter each time, we recommend you let LetterWise write several letters for you and you choose the best.

Feel free to start by uploading a past letter and ask LetterWise to evaluate it based on the same criteria. Remember – it’s an AI machine so you have final say as to how you really like your letter.

Can I write more than college recommendation letters?

Yes! Now you can write scholarship letters, Georgia Governors Honors Program Letters and graduation Letters. Graduation letters are personal letters of affirmation to your students that share all the accomplishments and praise you included in your college letter. Click the 'copy' icon in the 'Actions' column and create a new graduation letter from your college letter.

Why is there a different questionnaire for teachers and counselors?
Teachers typically describe students activities inside the classroom. Counselors write about student activities outside the classroom. The questionnaire and evaluation criteria reflect these differences.

What AI engine do you use?
Letterwise currently uses OpenAI's ChatGPT large language model. Your information is processed by LetterWise, transmitted to OpenAI's cloud and the output is returned to LetterWise. OpenAI may store your data on their server for up to 30 days. It is not used for training future models.

Can I use bulleted data when completing the questionnaire?
Yes. You may write complete sentences or use bullets phrases to answer the questionnaire.

What happens to the letters I create after my subscription ends?
We'll keep your letters in Letterwise for 18 months. However, we recommend you 'download' each of your letters to your computer when you are finished. Just go to the 'Actions' column in 'My Letters' and click 'Download this Letter' for each of your letters.

If I submit my letter to an AI detector, will it be detected as written by a large language model?
Based on our testing with a popular 'AI detector', letters written by LetterWise from fully completed questionnaires or from your own letters were determined most of the time to be written by a human. If you submit a questionnaire with little information about the student, LetterWise contributes more of its own content and those letters were, in most cases, deemed to be written by a large language model.

Is the information provided by LetterWise 100% accurate?
No, the information are not always accurate. Sometimes the AI language model makes mistakes and can make things up. We’re continually tweaking the model and the prompting to be more accurate but always proofread your letter.

Where did LetterWise come from?
LetterWise was created by a STEM high school computer science teacher in Roswell, GA. After struggling to write his own student recommendation letters, he used 'ChatGPT' to help. To teach his students how to write a web application from scratch, he decided to write LetterWise, with help from ChatGPT. Fellow teachers and counselors liked the idea and helped him improve on his original idea.