Over the past week, I have engaged in discussions with university officials, teachers, and high school seniors regarding the notorious college admissions essay. As an education technology writer for The Times, I have been pondering the potential impact of artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT on the college application process. I was particularly curious to know if admissions officials were altering their essay prompts or reconsidering personal essays altogether.
Amongst the flood of high school transcripts and teacher recommendations, admissions officers often rely on students’ writing samples to identify individuals with unique voices, experiences, ideas, and potential. However, the widespread use of A.I. chatbots by students for brainstorming essay topics, generating initial drafts, and refining their essays poses a question of how this might reshape the process. To explore this, I reached out to admissions officials from various large state universities, Ivy League schools, and small private colleges. One of them was Juan Espinoza, the director of undergraduate admissions at Virginia Tech.
According to Espinoza, many universities are currently trying to comprehend the functionality and implications of A.I. technologies in the admissions process. He emphasized the need to understand how students are utilizing these tools since they are evidently employing them to tackle essay prompts. For more details on the impact of A.I. tools on college applications, please refer to my article today.
Additionally, I came across insightful perspectives on ChatGPT from various admissions offices through podcasts conducted by different universities. Yale University, in particular, dedicated an entire episode of their podcast, “Inside the Yale Admissions Office,” to discuss A.I. tools. The episode’s title, “A.I. and College Essays: Wrong Question, Wrong Answer,” clearly reflects Yale’s standpoint on the matter.
During this podcast, two admissions officers from Yale expressed their belief that using tools like ChatGPT to write college essays amounts to plagiarism and violates the university’s admissions policy. They argued that personal essays for college applications are meant to be introspective and reflective, and outsourcing this type of personal thinking to an A.I. chatbot is unproductive. Hannah Mendlowitz, senior associate director of admissions at Yale, emphasized the inadequacy of A.I.-generated content in the context of college essays.
However, after conducting some basic A.I. experiments myself, I have a hunch that such perspectives may not hold for long. I employed ChatGPT and other tools to generate responses to short-answer questions from Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Dartmouth. While the A.I. bots did make factual errors, with repeated prompting, they were able to produce decent writing. It became evident how high school students could use these tools to create initial drafts and then modify the content to reflect their own voices and experiences.
Regardless of the ethical debates, these tools may benefit students who are struggling or lack a natural affinity for essay writing, providing them with a starting point and a way to overcome obstacles. For the short-answer college essays generated by the chatbots, I encourage you to read my article, which includes them.
According to Espinoza from Virginia Tech and other admissions experts, ChatGPT could potentially democratize the college admissions process, particularly for high school students whose parents may have limited or no experience with college applications. Espinoza, who was a first-generation collegegoer himself, wonders if this tool can simplify the complex process and help bridge any existing gaps.
To understand how high school students can utilize A.I. tools during the college application process, I interviewed Meg Scheid, the college outreach coordinator at the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science and Technology, a prestigious public high school in the Atlanta area. While Scheid initially expressed concerns about students using A.I.-generated content as their own, she soon recognized the benefits. A.I. chatbots can assist students in conducting focused college searches based on specific criteria, such as finding large public universities in the South known for biostatistics research or small private colleges offering full scholarships to soccer players.
Scheid also noted that A.I. chatbots can be valuable for students who need to compress extensive lists of extracurricular activities into limited spaces on college applications. By using these tools, students can effectively communicate their diverse involvements beyond simple team captaincy, revealing more about themselves as individuals.
Moreover, Khan Academy, the online education nonprofit, has developed its own A.I. chatbot for schools called Khanmigo, which includes a feature to assist students in generating ideas for college admissions essays. As an experiment, I decided to try it out.
Khanmigo acts as a lively and collaborative companion, initially educating students that college essays should not merely highlight their achievements but also showcase their unique personality and perspective. The chatbot provides a list of common mistakes to avoid when writing essays, such as discussing the misfortunes of others to highlight one’s privilege, which can make college admissions officers cringe.
I found the brainstorming feature quite useful, especially for students struggling to choose a compelling essay topic. Khanmigo starts by asking students about their overall experiences and then delves into promising themes. To illustrate this, I shared a real example from my teenage years when I worked at a bagel store in the mornings and interned at a genetics lab in the afternoons.
Khanmigo promptly focused on that summer experience, asking follow-up questions to extract valuable details for a college essay: How did the experience change me as a person? What did I learn from it? The software even requested visual descriptions of the bagel store and lab, which could greatly enrich the opening scene of an essay.
I do not intend to argue that A.I. tools can fully replace teachers, counselors, parents, friends, and other human assistance when it comes to college essays. However, I appreciated the immediate feedback from Khanmigo and the other A.I. chatbots I experimented with this week. It undeniably made the essay-writing process more enjoyable!
In the upcoming week, I look forward to exploring how educators utilize A.I. tools to generate recommendation letters for their students. If you are a college professor or high school teacher with experiences using A.I. chatbots, I invite you to share your insights by filling out this form. Your response could be featured in a future newsletter.
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