CounselorAI

Measured conclusion: Deep-tested. L2 outcome: tools_ok.

College-access writing and financial-aid analysis tools for counselors, students, and families.

Add to your agent

Copy this into your MCP client config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "CounselorAI": {
      "url": "https://api.counselorai.app/mcp",
      "transport": "streamable-http"
    }
  }
}

Measured tools (13)

• appeal

  Draft a financial aid appeal letter to a college financial aid office. Call this when a family needs to ask for a review of an award: income dropped, an expense appeared, another school offered more, or the FAFSA was wrong. Returns the letter, not advice on whether to appeal. Runs a 5-step drafting pipeline, so it is the most expensive tool here and the slowest, typically 30 to 60 seconds. Cost: about 353 credits (~$0.353) per call.

  Parameters:

  • keyDetails (required) — string — The circumstances, in the counselor or family's own words. This is what the letter is built out of, so specifics beat summaries.
  • length — string — Roughly 330, 440 or 560 words.
  • status — array — Student circumstances the letter should carry without labeling them. homeless and housing_insecure are the same category.
  • competing — string — A competing offer to cite, if there is one.
  • appealType — string — What the appeal rests on. changed_circumstances is income loss or a new expense since the FAFSA, competing_offer is a match request, special_circumstances asks for a Professional Judgment review, error_correction fixes bad data on the original filing. financial_hardship is a legacy alias for changed_circumstances.
  • schoolName — string — The institution the appeal goes to.
  • naturalness — integer — How plainly the letter should read. 1 is formal institutional, 5 is conversational.
  • studentName — string — The student this is about. Used in the output text.
  • amountNeeded — string — The gap being asked for.
  • currentAward — string — What the school offered, as written on the award letter.
  • counselorName — string — Who the letter is from. The counselor stays the author; this tool drafts, it does not sign.

  Hints: read-only no · destructive no · idempotent not declared · open-world no

• rec

  Draft a letter of recommendation from counselor notes. Call this to WRITE a letter. To critique one that already exists, call letterlens instead, which is much cheaper. Runs the same 5-step pipeline as appeal. Cost: about 369 credits (~$0.369) per call.

  Parameters:

  • traits (required) — string — Three standout traits. Send prose, not a list of adjectives: the pipeline turns each one into a scene and needs something to work from.
  • major — string
  • story — string — A specific moment worth telling. The single highest-value field here.
  • purpose — string — What the letter is for. undergraduate, graduate, internship and other are legacy aliases kept working for existing integrations.
  • schools — string — Target school or program.
  • profType — string — Only when purpose is professional: which professional school, since each reads for different things.
  • recipient — string — Who receives it, if named.
  • resumeText — string — Resume or activity list as plain text.
  • sampleText — string — A sample of the counselor's own writing, so the letter lands in their voice rather than a generic one.
  • selectivity — string — How selective the target is. Shifts how much evidence the letter has to carry.
  • studentName — string — The student this is about. Used in the output text.
  • contribution — string — What the student adds to a campus.
  • relationship — string — How the counselor knows the student, and for how long.
  • counselorName — string — Who the letter is from. The counselor stays the author; this tool drafts, it does not sign.

  Hints: read-only no · destructive no · idempotent not declared · open-world no

• letterlens read-only

  Analyze a finished recommendation letter and return specific fixes: what is vague, what is asserted without evidence, what reads as generated. Read-only and far cheaper than drafting. Use it to critique a draft, not to rewrite one, and use revision to apply the fixes. Cost: about 93 credits (~$0.093) per call.

  Parameters:

  • letterText (required) — string — The letter to review, as plain text.
  • focus — string — A specific thing to look hardest at, if there is one.
  • purpose — string — What the letter is for. A scholarship letter is read differently from a transfer letter.

  Hints: read-only yes · destructive no · idempotent not declared · open-world no

• awardlens read-only

  Break down one to three financial aid award letters: what is grant, what is loan, what is work-study that has to be earned, what the supported net price is, and what renewal conditions are buried in the language. Identifies missing facts and questions for the aid office. With more than one letter it compares them side by side. Read-only. Cost: about 173 credits (~$0.173) per call.

  Parameters:

  • letter1 (required) — string — First award letter, pasted as plain text.
  • letter2 — string — Second award letter, to compare against the first.
  • letter3 — string — Third award letter.
  • studentName — string — The student this is about. Used in the output text.
  • scorecardData — array — Optional College Scorecard lines to ground the comparison: acceptance rate, graduation rate, average net price. Include the original Letter number and school/campus; unverified caller-supplied context.

  Hints: read-only yes · destructive no · idempotent not declared · open-world no

• fafsa

  Produce a FAFSA action checklist for one student, keyed to their grade, dependency status and income band. Answers the process question a family actually has: what do we do, in what order, by when. Does not compute an award. Cost: about 87 credits (~$0.087) per call.

  Parameters:

  • grade — string — How far out the family is. 12 means act now.
  • notes — string — Anything else that should shape the output.
  • income — string — Household income band. Drives whether Pell is in play.
  • schools — string — Schools on the list, if known. Deadlines differ by school.
  • specials — array — Situations that change the filing rules: divorced or separated parents, a stepparent, a sibling also in college, undocumented status, foster care, housing instability, disability, a mid-year income change.
  • timeline — string — Where they are in the cycle.
  • dependency — string — Dependency drives whose income is reported. unsure is a valid answer and changes the checklist.
  • studentName — string — The student this is about. Used in the output text.

  Hints: read-only no · destructive no · idempotent not declared · open-world no

• aid

  Explain what a family is likely to see across a list of schools and why, in plain language. An explanation for a counselor to walk a family through, never an official determination, and the output says so. Cost: about 73 credits (~$0.073) per call.

  Parameters:

  • income — string — Household income, as the family stated it.
  • context — string — Household situation that affects the estimate.
  • schoolCount — integer — How many schools are being compared.
  • studentName — string — The student this is about. Used in the output text.
  • fafsaContext — string — What is already known from the FAFSA, including the SAI if it has come back.
  • repayContext — string — What the family has said about borrowing and what they can carry.
  • schoolSummaries — string — One line per school: name, cost of attendance, anything already known about the offer.

  Hints: read-only no · destructive no · idempotent not declared · open-world no

• scholarship

  Search for current scholarship pages to review. A page in the result is a research lead, not a verified match. Confirm program terms, deadline, and student eligibility on the sponsor page before advising the student. Live web search makes this slower and costlier than the other analysis tools. Cost: about 165 credits (~$0.165) per call.

  Parameters:

  • gpa — string
  • grade — string — Grade level or transfer status.
  • major — string — Intended field. Departmental awards are usually the least contested.
  • notes — string — Anything else that should shape the output.
  • state — string — State of residence. State and regional awards have far smaller applicant pools than national ones.
  • activities — string — Extracurriculars and leadership.
  • backgrounds — array — Eligibility categories that unlock specific award pools.
  • studentName — string — The student this is about. Used in the output text.

  Hints: read-only no · destructive no · idempotent not declared · open-world no

• profile

  Turn raw counselor notes into a structured student profile. Run this first when working one student across several tools: it is cheap, and its output is good input for the relationship, traits and story fields on rec, or keyDetails on appeal. Cost: about 87 credits (~$0.087) per call.

  Parameters:

  • tags — array — Background categories. Same vocabulary the scholarship tool uses, so a profile feeds straight into it.
  • goals — string
  • grade — string
  • major — string
  • notes — string — Anything else that should shape the output.
  • school — string
  • academics — string — Coursework, GPA, testing, academic trajectory.
  • strengths — string — What the counselor has actually observed, not adjectives.
  • activities — string
  • challenges — string — What the student has had to work around.
  • studentName — string — The student this is about. Used in the output text.

  Hints: read-only no · destructive no · idempotent not declared · open-world no

• revision

  Apply one instruction to an existing letter and return the revised text. Pair it with letterlens: review to find the problems, revise to fix them. Changes only what the instruction asks for. Cost: about 97 credits (~$0.097) per call.

  Parameters:

  • currentText (required) — string — The letter as it stands.
  • instruction (required) — string — What to change. One instruction per call gets a cleaner result than a list.

  Hints: read-only no · destructive no · idempotent not declared · open-world no

• translate read-only

  Translate counselor-facing output into a family's language, holding the financial aid terms in English on purpose. FAFSA, Pell, SAI, COA and the loan names stay untranslated so a family can match what the school actually sends them against what they were told. Read-only. Cost: about 173 credits (~$0.173) per call.

  Parameters:

  • sourceText (required) — string — The text to translate. Usually the output of another tool.
  • targetLang (required) — string — Target language code.

  Hints: read-only yes · destructive no · idempotent not declared · open-world no

• humanize read-only

  Rewrite reader-facing prose so it sounds direct, specific, and personal without changing facts or inventing a voice. Use it for outreach, emails, letters, posts, and narrative copy. It preserves quoted text and checks the result against the source. It does not evade or promise to beat AI detectors. Do not use it for code, SQL, JSON, legal text, or technical specifications. Cost: about 413 credits (~$0.413) per call.

  Parameters:

  • text (required) — string — The reader-facing prose to edit.
  • audience — string — Who will read the text. This changes vocabulary and formality, not the facts.
  • strength — string — light makes surface fixes, standard rewrites AI-sounding sentences, aggressive may rebuild paragraph flow.
  • preserveFormatting — boolean — Keep headings, lists, paragraph breaks, links, and other formatting.

  Hints: read-only yes · destructive no · idempotent not declared · open-world no

• account_balance read-only

  Free. Returns the credits left on this API key. Call it before a long run of billed calls.

  Hints: read-only yes · destructive not declared · idempotent not declared · open-world not declared

• quote_call read-only

  Free. Validates the input for a tool and returns the exact credit hold a real call would take at your price, plus whether your balance covers it. Use it to budget before a billed call or to lint an input for free.

  Parameters:

  • tool (required) — string — Tool name from tools/list.
  • input — object — The input you intend to send. Optional; omit for the default estimate.

  Hints: read-only yes · destructive not declared · idempotent not declared · open-world not declared

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Measured by MCPYP probing. Untested fields are omitted, never estimated. Listing is always free; MCPYP never proxies calls or stores user tokens.