ChatGPT assists professor in writing recommendation letter for student, gets him scholarship

ChatGPT, a very popularised chatbot created by OpenAI, was used by a professor at the University of Victoria in Canada to write a reference letter which a student needed to get a scholarship. The decision paid off well as the student was able to get the scholarship, reported The Atlantic.

Matt Huculak, who is the head of advanced research services at the libraries of the university, directed ChatGPT to pen down an "excellent" reference letter for a student who was then selected for a graduate programme at one of the "top-three" schools in Canada.

The student was not just selected but also offered a prestigious scholarship by the University of Cambridge soon later, Hucula said.

"Honestly, the ChatGPT generated letter was among some of the best letters I've read. It was concise, it used "concrete" examples, it spoke to the candidate's ability to collaborate with others," Huculak stated.

The response of the chatbot was used by the professor as a template of what one should not write in the recommendation letter as he knew that AI would create a formulaic and tired letter.

Huculak said that the final outcome left him pleasantly surprised. "What I wrote ended up feeling like the most 'human' and heartfelt letter I've written in a long time," he said.

Huculak stated that he used ChatGPT to write an original letter. He said that the professors generally recycle the reference letters they gave in the past and format them to suit the needs of a particular student, which can produce dull letters.

"A formula, per se, isn't bad," said Huculak. "But when a professor is invested in a student's success, you are always fighting the 'form' of expectations in order to show how unique your student is and why they will be successful at the institution to which they are applying," he added.

By repurposing old reference letters, the professors used to save time and escape the anxiety of an empty page. Huculak said that taking the help of ChatGPT to generate the letters can break the cycle.

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He said that the attempt provided him with a space to experiment with writing in a way he was not earlier comfortable. Huculak said that writing a reference letter "is a tremendously difficult task" which he finds "anxiety-producing".

While few schools and colleges around the world have banned ChatGPT fearing that students, with the help of AI chatbot, will indulge in plagiarism and cheating, Huculak is among professors who believe that the technology is here to make people's jobs easier and boost the productivity of the students.

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