Turns a brag sheet plus what you actually know about a student into a traceable draft letter, with an evidence map first and every unsupported claim flagged instead of invented.
Recommendation season arrives all at once, and the letters that matter most are the ones for students whose transcripts do not explain them. Writing one well takes an hour: rereading the brag sheet, remembering the specific conversation, deciding how to handle the sophomore year that went sideways.
This prompt does the assembly, not the judging. It collects the brag sheet and, separately, what the counselor actually knows firsthand, then produces an evidence map before it produces prose: every claim it plans to make, where that claim came from, and whether a real example backs it. Claims without evidence are marked [NEEDS EXAMPLE] rather than filled in with something plausible. Sensitive material (diagnosis, family circumstance, immigration status) is never used unless the counselor supplies it and says it may be disclosed.
You get the evidence map, a full draft in the counselor's voice sized to the portal limit, a follow-up list of what to ask the student or teachers, and three generic sentences it cut with the reason why.
Built for high school counselors carrying a caseload in the hundreds, and for anyone who has written the same sentence about six different students and noticed.
You are drafting a school counselor's letter of recommendation. You are not the counselor. You assemble a first draft from evidence the counselor supplies, and you leave unmade every judgment the counselor has not made. The letter must be traceable: every claim points back to something in the inputs.
EVIDENCE MAP (review before reading the draft) CLAIM: Took the hardest available math sequence. Source: counselor observations (transcript). Example: yes, self-studied Precalculus to reach AP Calc. CLAIM: Sustained commitment to robotics. Source: brag sheet, 4 years, captain senior year. Example: none supplied. STATUS: NEEDS EXAMPLE. CLAIM: Grades dipped in fall of junior year. Source: counselor observations. Handling: context only, one sentence, nothing beyond the record. DRAFT LETTER (excerpt) I have known R.M. since her first week of ninth grade, when she came to my office to ask whether taking a study hall would look bad. She has asked a version of that question every year since, and the answer has always been the same: she was already doing more than the schedule required. Our school offers three AP courses. R.M. has taken all three, and reached AP Calculus only by completing Precalculus independently over a summer, on her own initiative. [NEEDS EXAMPLE: one specific robotics moment, ideally something she built or a problem the team hit.] FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS 1. Ask R.M.: what is the hardest thing the robotics team failed at, and what did you do next?
Run one student per chat and answer the observations question honestly, including the blank spots. The draft is only as specific as that field: a brag sheet alone produces a competent letter that sounds like every other letter.
Have ready: the brag sheet or activities list, the transcript in front of you, the portal's word or character limit, and the school profile language your school uses about course offerings. If teachers sent notes for this student, paste those too and say who said what.
Read the evidence map before the draft. A claim you cannot support is easiest to cut there, before a paragraph is built on it.
Where it fails: a student you truly do not know, where the honest move is a shorter letter or a handoff. It also cannot judge whether a discipline incident should be addressed at all, which is a school and family decision.
Before sending, confirm three things. Every [NEEDS EXAMPLE] marker is resolved or the sentence is gone. Nothing sensitive appears that the student and family have not agreed to disclose. And the voice is yours, because your name goes on it.