6 Effective Prompts For Using AI in College Counseling
Maggie Lucas, Marlborough School
Claire Wilkins, German Swiss International School of Hong Kong
Sara Miranda, Chadwick School
Best Practices For Prompt Creation
The prompts in this document are a great start - but as you become more comfortable with using AI models in your counseling practice, you’ll want to work to develop your own. The tips below are helpful to keep in mind as you create and revise your own prompts:
Be clear in your instructions.
For best results you’ll need to be explicit with what you’re looking for the AI model to produce. For example - instead of prompting: “summarize these meeting notes,” try “summarize these meeting notes in three paragraphs, one including academic interests, one with extracurricular interests, one with personal interests; then, in a closing bulleted list, list out any specific questions that were asked in the meeting.”
Be ready to revise your instructions.
Don’t give up if the model’s response to your initial prompt does not contain the information you need; continue to clarify and specify to craft a prompt that will consistently help you achieve your goal Keep making small edits to get it exactly where you need - then make sure to save it for future use!
Be specific! The model won’t guess what you’re looking for.
Make sure to include relevant data and information when needed- you can include more information than you may think! Try giving it role context, “I am a college counselor creating a...” or provide it with numbers, “I need a list of 12 colleges that...”
Provide a list of steps needed to complete the request.
AI models can handle step-by-step instructions, and often need that structure provided to get the job done. In your prompt, lay these steps out - ask the model to first do X, then do Y, in pursuit of the intended goal.
The prompts in the pages below are a collection of both broad and specific examples that may be useful to a college counselor Some may be usable as is, while others will need to be adjusted for your specific needs They all provide a starting point, specific language, and clarity of prompt that has been proven effective in today’s AI models
Prompt 1: Student Questionnaires
College counseling offices often use a student survey or questionnaire to begin the conversation around college interests, academic pathways, readiness, and needs. AI can help craft questions for a student survey. This can be used to generate a new survey, or to compare against a preexisting survey, ensuring questions are comprehensive and useful.
PROMPT:
Create a detailed questionnaire for high school students focusing on academic interests, extracurricular activities, career goals, and learning preferences. The questionnaire should include ways for students to tell stories about their experiences
Edits or Future Considerations:
You could consider adding in a statement that requests the generated questions address challenges students of the current decade face, that students of past decades did not face, to ensure timely and forward-thinking responses
You can include a statement on your school’s values (e g kindness, inclusivity, integrity) and ask the AI model to include those values in specific questions
You can reword the prompt to generate a parent questionnaire which asks them for their feedback and observations on their students.
Prompt 2: College Tour Planning
Some college counseling offices offer chaperoned college tours for their students to a new geographic areas. This puts the college counselor in the role of travel agent - and AI can be a great way to map out these trips.
PROMPT:
I am a college counselor preparing a six day, five night trip for 25 high school students to visit colleges and universities Can you recommend geographic locations where we could see a wide variety of colleges and universities that differ in selectivity and prepare a sample itinerary? Give me three different options.
Edits or Future Considerations:
Once you’ve honed in on a geographic area or general tour route, the AI model can suggest affordable options for tourism in the area(s) you’re visiting
The AI model can also provide you with direct links to register for a group visit at any of the colleges that it suggests It may not offer that right away, but in a follow-up question you can easily prompt the model to do so
Prompt 3: Letters of Recommendation
This is perhaps the most common conversation about AI and the college process. While there are differing views on using AI to craft an entire recommendation letter, there are also ways to use AI to summarize and analyze student information to create content - or a starting point - for a letter. The below example asks the program to analyze a list of activities and showcase specific skills/talents that emerge frequently.
These skills/talents can align with your school’s overall missions and values. The LLM can help synthesize! This example is a way to keep a student fairly anonymous in the LLM, if required by your school. As a note, it can also be extremely helpful for short summer programs or internship recommendation forms for students you don’t (yet) know well.
PROMPT:
I am a college counselor. Using the list of a student’s extracurricular activities provided below, create a single paragraph of a recommendation letter that uses those activities to showcase the student’s leadership, commitment, initiative, and inclusivity.
PASTE LIST OF ACTIVITIES HERE
Edits or Future Considerations:
Depending on your school’s data sharing policy, or if you use a paid license for an AI model, you can also use the student/parent survey responses to create full initial draft letters of recommendation for a college application. Be prepared to revise carefully for tone, voice, and accuracy of content.
You can also use an AI model to analyze multiple letters of recommendation you’ve written for themes or other areas of improvement. Some potential new prompts to ask the AI model once you’ve provided your letters:
Analyze my recommendation letters for any overused phrases, and suggest alternate phrases with the same meaning.
Analyze my letters to ensure I have included specific values from this list in each letter. (make sure to provide list of values!)
In each letter I am trying to balance a student’s personal qualities with their academic and extracurricular impact Find any letters where I am not emphasizing these areas proportionally and let me know
Prompt 4: Presentation Outlines
Many college counseling offices host college nights, or grade-specific college programming. If you have a list of topics you want to cover, AI can be a great way to input a ton of content and ask it to analyze, organize, and create an outline of a presentation for your college program. The power of the LLM here is a quick starting point organization and synthesis of a disordered list of ideas.
PROMPT:
I am a college counselor preparing a presentation for parents and students
Create a logically ordered outline of a presentation that includes these topics:
Standardized Testing
What test to take
When to send test scores
When to stop testing?
Do you need to know all your college options?
Can you commit to Early Decision and when does that benefit you?
You will be denied from more schools than you are admitted to, and that’s okay
Parents: do the survey we’ll send you, it helps us get to know your students and advocate
Research pay to play vs. real engagement opportunities
Deadlines are deadlines, not a trick to apply early
Independent counselors - when are they helpful, when are they unhelpful?
Keep us in the loop if you use one, we are still your greatest advocate
Do not reverse engineer admissions decisions [AND SO FORTH]
Edits or Future Considerations:
This allows you to keep a running list of ideas or topics you want to cover at a college program throughout the year The list can be a “parking lot” for ideas and topics that regularly come up with students and families
In future years, you can use an AI model to review multiple presentations you’ve given, and compare content from year to year and suggest new themes for inclusion
Prompt 5: College List Building
AI can be a useful tool for college list building and generation. It can be something used by a counselor to research specific majors, locations, or opportunities. It can also be used by students and their families to research colleges and begin a college list, reinforcing responsible usage of AI. There are simple, direct ways to use the programs as well as detailed, interactive ways to create a college list.
PROMPT: SIMPLE RESEARCH
Produce a comprehensive list of colleges on the West Coast that offer Aerospace Engineering majors, minors, or concentrations. For each, include the acceptance rate and size of the student body.
PROMPT: COMPREHENSIVE LIST BUILDING
I am a high school student looking to create a list of colleges, of varying selectivity, that meet my educational interests. Please ask me a series of questions, one at a time, to understand my interests related to college location, campus size, prospective fields of study, affordability, and campus diversity to help create this list Please also inquire about my academic qualifications (GPA, test scores, academic rigor).
After you have asked me these questions, consider my preferences and qualifications and create a college list of 18 colleges that includes 3-6 Reach Schools (0-25% chance of being admitted), 7-10 Target Schools (25-50% chance of getting admitted), and 3-6 Likely Schools (above 50% chance of being admitted).
Edits or Future Considerations:
If you use the comprehensive list building prompt, make sure to review the list of areas that students will be asked about, and update it to include any other questions you think may be relevant for your population (athletics, clubs, housing options, etc.)
You can expand the academic qualifications question to include more specifics: number of APs offered and taken, IB/AP exam results, etc.
Prompt 6: College Visits Itinerary
There are many times that a family says they are visiting a certain part of the country and would love some suggestions for colleges to visit in that region. AI can be an extremely useful tool to help a family plan a college tour, particularly since some/many of these questions concern areas you personally may have never visited!
PROMPT:
I want to create a seven day tour of colleges for a family who is visiting New York State. The student would like to consider colleges of all sizes that have Engineering majors. Please suggest a tour route, including a full itinerary of driving time. Family is willing to fly into one airport and out of another. Please do not include any SUNYs or CUNYs. Please include each college’s acceptance rate
Edits or Future Considerations:
You can also add into your prompt that the AI model should research and include the website link for each school’s campus tour sign-up page.
You can always customize or be more specific about the desired size of schools, information about specific or notable majors or programs, the athletic division and opportunities, and so forth