Students today are worried about whether AI use is allowed in college admissions essays, whether schools use AI detectors, and if an application can be rejected over suspected AI content.
As AI increasingly weaves its way into our lives, we are entering a new phase of college admissions.
More and more, AI has become second nature for students in their schoolwork while concerned teachers and professors try to play catchup. These are major concerns, and bring up issues related to academic integrity, the nature of learning and even fundamental questions like “what is the goal of an education?”.
Quick Findings:
- Most colleges have no formal AI policy
- None of the responding colleges are using AI detectors
- Proven AI mis-use can lead to rejection
- All colleges emphasized authentic student voices
These concerns are now front and center in the college admission process, and as a college consultant I hear about them almost daily from concerned students and parents. Freaked out students reach out to me all the time with questions like these:
“I am not using AI to write but when I plug my essay into an AI checked it says very high levels of AI so I’m nervous :-(“
“I wrote my essay about the hardships about my surgery and an ai detector said it was 96% ai, now I’m worried idk what to do.”
There are extremely important questions at the heart of this:
- Can a student use AI in their college essay or other parts of their application?
- What is appropriate versus inappropriate use of AI?
- Do colleges use AI detectors?
- If so, are they reliable?
And central to it all, can a college reject me if they think, correctly or incorrectly, that I used AI inappropriately on my college application?
What’s Happening?
You would think colleges would be giving us clear answers to these questions. Unfortunately they are not.
This is just feeding the anxiety and concern for students and families as they try to navigate the already stressful and often overwhelming college admissions process.
So I took it upon myself to investigate. I reached out to the admissions departments at 24 colleges around the country – a mix of public, private and Ivy League colleges – and asked them the following questions:
- What are appropriate versus inappropriate uses of AI to help write a student’s college essay?
- How can you tell if a student has used AI in their college essay?
- What happens if you strongly suspect but cannot necessarily prove a student has inappropriately used AI in their college essay?
- What happens if you can definitively prove a student has inappropriately used AI in their college essay? Do you have any examples of this?
Their answers, or lack thereof, were quite telling.
Of the 24 schools I reached out to, 16 didn’t respond, even after sending follow up emails. This is frankly quite odd, but it suggests one of two things, either these colleges did not have specific AI policies or they weren’t comfortable putting their answers into writing.
Of the colleges that did respond, here are the major takeaways:
@unlocking.college Read the responses from college admissions officers below: “Appropriate uses of AI include tasks such as brainstorming, generating prompts or questions for self-reflection, outlining, or editing for clarity and length. These uses help students refine their own ideas without replacing their voice. Inappropriate uses of AI would include relying on it to produce the personal content of the essay. Because AI tools do not truly know the student, essays written primarily by AI tend to lack authenticity, depth, and the human perspective that personal statements are meant to convey. If we were ever able to conclusively determine that an applicant had violated expectations of academic integrity, the situation would be taken seriously. In severe cases, it could affect an admissions decision, similar to the other integrity-related issues.” “We currently do not have guidelines regarding the use of AI on applications, thus I do not have concrete answers to your questions. We simply recommend students to show their authentic selves in the application. Let me know if you have any further questions!” “…Independent policy that the use of artificial intelligence by an applicant is not permitted under any circumstances in conjunction with application content. All essays, short-answer questions and any other material submitted by an applicant must be the work of that individual, unassisted by artificial intelligence.” #ai #collegeessays #collegeessay #collegeadmissions #collegeapps ♬ original sound – Unlocking College Admissions
1. Most Colleges Do Not Have Any Formal AI Policy As Part Of The College Admissions Process
This is probably surprising to many students, parents and professionals, but colleges responded with comments like:
“We do not have a formal policy on AI or technology usage.”
“At _____ we currently do not have guidelines regarding the use of AI on applications, thus I do not have concrete answers to your questions.”
Only one college, an Ivy League School, said they had a set policy. “The use of artificial intelligence by an applicant is not permitted under any circumstances in conjunction with application content.”
2. None Of The Colleges Who Responded Are Using AI Detectors
This may also be surprising to many reading this, but it should give some peace of mind to students who are worried their essay will be flagged as written by AI when in fact they wrote it themselves.
Please be aware this does NOT apply to professors in college who do often use AI detectors, as one admissions officer made very clear to me.
3. College Admissions Officers Can Generally Tell If AI (Or Others - Like A Parent) Wrote The Essay
As a college consultant I read close to 100 college essays in an application season and I can usually tell when parts of a student’s essay don’t seem to have been written by them. College admissions officers read hundreds if not thousands of essays each year, so hearing this was no surprise.
This alone should give any student pause when considering if they should use AI inappropriately in their college applications.
4. Most Colleges Were Okay With Some Use Of AI
In general, the colleges that responded said appropriate use of AI included brainstorming, grammar review, and minor polishing of an essay. But even in these answers the colleges were not consistent, which would only seem to feed further confusion.
The Ivy League schools seemed to take the most harsh stance against AI.
For example:
“Appropriate uses of AI include tasks such as brainstorming, generating prompts or questions for self-reflection, outlining, or editing for clarity and length.”
“Using it for grammar and structure can be similar to using spellcheck, however, using it for brainstorming may give students ideas or prompts that are commonly used or suggested.”
Two Ivy League Universities responded more harshly, suggesting they didn’t think any use of AI was appropriate.
“Using it for grammar and structure can be similar to using spellcheck, however, using it for brainstorming may give students ideas or prompts that are commonly used or suggested.”
“We do ask that student's write their college essays independently without the assistance of other individuals or technology in forming their thoughts or drafting the words expressed in their application.”
5. Colleges Are Willing To Reject Applicants Who Mis-Use AI
Although quite rare, some of the colleges made it clear they could reject students outright if it was proven they used AI inappropriately on their college applications.
“If we were ever able to conclusively determine that an applicant had violated expectations of academic integrity, the situation would be taken seriously. In severe cases, it could affect an admissions decision.”
6. Students Need To Bring Their Authentic Voice
More than anything, these colleges made it clear they want to hear a student’s authentic voice in their essays and throughout their application.
As a college consultant this is what we tell our students repeatedly, so it was good to hear these admissions officers reiterate it. Writing in a student’s authentic voice is usually the most challenging part of the college essay writing process, as high school students are used to writing history papers and analytical essays about a novel they read, as opposed to being introspective and reflective about themselves, their values, challenges and goals.
Here are some of the most telling comments these admissions officers made about the importance of an authentic voice in a college essay.
“Because AI tools do not truly know the student, essays written primarily by AI tend to lack authenticity, depth, and the human perspective that personal statements are meant to convey.”
“We simply recommend students to show their authentic selves in the application.”
“The purpose of the essay is for us to understand the student as an individual, so outsourcing that substance is not appropriate.”
“We do read every single essay submitted so our number one piece of advice that we give students is to not focus on it being perfect, but rather, make sure it is written in their own voice. The grammar, spelling, etc. is not our primary concern when reading essays. The value of essays comes from the content and how well they allow us to get to know the applicants.”
Conclusion
It's clear that college admissions departments, much like teachers, professors, the rest of the educational community, and society at large are still grappling with the changes that AI is bringing.
For colleges admissions officer, though, at least one truth remains unchanged: they want to hear a student’s authentic voice in their college application.
While I would argue there needs to be more transparency from colleges regarding their AI policies (or lack thereof), it’s clear that for the most part they agree that limited use of AI, like for brainstorming or grammar review, is acceptable.
Anything beyond that crosses a line, both ethically and practically, as essays with heavy AI use can lose a student’s authentic voice and in the worst cases result in outright rejection from the college.