How to Use AI for a Letter of Continued Interest

If you have been waitlisted, a letter of continued interest, a LOCI, is usually your one real move. First, a reality check so you spend your energy wisely: on average only about 20 percent of students are admitted off waitlists, and at the most selective schools it drops to 7 percent or lower, with some Ivies admitting as few as 2 percent. So a great LOCI does not guarantee anything. But a tight, genuine one is exactly the controllable thing that can tip a close call, and AI can help you write it well.

I’m Nico. I’ve coached over 200 students into nearly every top 100 school in the country. Here is the format and the honest way to use AI on it.

First, follow the school’s instructions

Some schools invite updates, some explicitly ask you not to send anything. Check the waitlist instructions before you write. If they say no additional materials, respect it. If they allow a note or an update form, proceed.

The format that works

A LOCI is short, usually 250 to 400 words, and it does four things: says plainly that the school is your top choice and you will attend if admitted, shares two or three genuine updates since you applied, connects specifically why you still fit, and thanks them. That is it. No begging, no restating your whole application.

How to use AI on it

The move is to feed AI your real updates and the format, then let it help you structure and tighten, not invent.

Prompt: “Help me write a letter of continued interest for [school], where I was waitlisted. Here are my genuine updates since applying: [list real grades, awards, projects, new responsibilities]. Here is why it is still my top choice: [your real reasons]. Keep it under 350 words, sincere and specific, no groveling. Draft a structure and I will write it in my voice.”

Then write the final version yourself so it sounds like you. AI is good at the skeleton and the trimming. The sincerity has to be real, because a form-letter LOCI reads exactly like one.

The one line that matters most

If, and only if, it is true, state clearly that you will enroll if admitted. Schools protect their yield, so a credible “you are my first choice and I will come” is the single most powerful sentence in the letter. Never send that line to more than one school.

The traps to avoid

• Generic enthusiasm. “I love everything about your school” is invisible. Name specific, real reasons.
• A wall of updates. Two or three meaningful ones beat a list of ten small ones.
• The AI form letter. If it reads like a template, it works against you. Make it specific and true.

Where AdmissionsOS fits

Sol, the AI college counselor inside AdmissionsOS, helps you write a LOCI that is short, specific, and genuine: it pulls your real updates into the proven structure, keeps you from groveling or padding, and grounds the “why I still fit” in real detail about the school. It is the controllable part of a waitlist, done as well as it can be done.

Waitlisted and want it done right? Start with AdmissionsOS.