Pros and Cons of Using AI for Your College Application
The college application process can be a challenge. And many colleges have a requirement that prospective students submit a personal statement, a document meant to capture a student’s unique voice and character as part of that process.
Not all college applications require one, but for those who are required, there’s an important question. Is using artificial intelligence (AI) to create a personal statement a good idea? If you are a veteran returning to school or are just getting started in your academic career, this is an important issue to know before you start.
College Applications: The Allure of AI
It’s easy to see why a prospective college student might turn to an AI writer for help. AI offers several practical advantages that can ease the burden of the application process. AI is an excellent tool for overcoming writer’s block. The blank page is an intimidating foe. AI can serve as a brainstorming tool to help generate ideas.
- AI excels at polishing grammar and style. Even strong writers make mistakes.
- AI models can function as sophisticated proofreaders, catching grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and awkward phrasing.
- AI may suggest alternative vocabulary to avoid repetition and help restructure sentences for better flow and impact. Used in this capacity, AI is simply an advanced version of the spell-check and related tools that have been accepted for decades.
- AI also offers efficiency. Crafting a thoughtful personal statement takes time—time that is in short supply during the college application season.
- AI can produce a full draft in seconds. This allows students to dedicate more time to other parts of their application, or to the more important work of refining the essay’s core message and ensuring its personal details are accurate and compelling.
- AI may also help students trim their essays to meet strict word count requirements.
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The Perils of Automation
Despite its utility, relying on AI to write the substance of a personal statement is not the best option. The potential consequences range from a weakened application to outright rejection, depending on how obvious the AI authorship is. Some don’t even bother to correct basic errors in the text. They don’t realize AI is capable of misspellings and improper word usage, and miss these in the final review.
Another drawback is the loss of authenticity. The personal statement has one primary job: to reveal who the applicant is as a person. It is a rare opportunity to speak directly to an admissions officer, to share a story, and to convey passion for a subject.
- AI, by its nature, cannot replicate a person’s unique voice or lived experience. It generates text based on patterns from countless sources, resulting in prose that is often generic, emotionally flat, and devoid of genuine character. An essay that sounds like it could have been written by anyone is an immediate failure.
- There is also a serious risk of plagiarism. Because AI models learn from the same vast pool of internet data, they can produce similar outputs for similar prompts. If thousands of students ask an AI to write about “learning leadership from being a team captain,” the resulting essays may share common phrases, structures, and metaphors.
- Remember that admissions officers read hundreds of essays on the same topics. They quickly notice these patterns. Using AI to write your entire statement raises a red flag, suggesting the applicant did not put forth original effort.
- AI models can introduce factual inaccuracies. In their effort to create a smooth narrative from a list of bullet points, they are known to “hallucinate” or invent details or embellish facts to fit the story.
- AI might turn a minor disagreement into a dramatic conflict or ascribe profound, unearned emotions to a simple event. If an admissions officer questions these details in an interview, the applicant will be unable to speak genuinely about the fabricated experience, fatally undermining their credibility.
Ethics
Many universities are establishing clear policies on the use of AI in admissions. Submitting an essay written largely by a machine can be considered academic dishonesty equivalent to plagiarism.
An applicant caught doing so faces immediate disqualification. Even if an explicit policy is not in place, the act violates the fundamental spirit of the personal statement, which is a testament to the student’s own work and self-reflection.
Common AI “Tells”
Admissions officers may not use detection software on every essay, but they do not need to. After reading thousands of student statements, they develop a strong intuition for what authentic writing from a prospective college student is like. AI-generated text often contains subtle but consistent patterns that give it away.
One big indicator? Overly polished, formulaic prose. AI writing is often grammatically perfect but lifeless. The sentence structures tend to be repetitive and predictable. They tend to lack the natural rhythm and occasional awkwardness of human writing.
Another major tell is a lack of specific, sensory detail. A person writing about a meaningful experience will include these specifics. AI struggles with this. It writes in vague generalities.
The tone of an AI essay is often enthusiastic but empty. There is no genuine vulnerability, no hint of self-doubt, and no real emotional arc. The voice is confident and competent but ultimately sterile. A human story has texture; it has highs and lows. An AI story is a smooth, clean surface with nothing underneath.
The structure of AI writing can feel logical but lifeless. An AI essay is often perfectly organized, with each paragraph neatly addressing a single point. It still can lack a compelling narrative thread. Human storytelling is not always linear. An AI-written essay reads less like a story and more like a report.
A Tool, Not an Author
Should a student use AI to write their college essay? The answer is a qualified no. Why?
The risk of producing an inauthentic, generic, and potentially dishonest essay is simply too high. The very qualities that make a personal statement effective include your unique voice, genuine emotion, and specific, personal details. These are often the first things lost when the writing process is automated.
AI should be treated as a tool, not as the author. Use it to brainstorm ideas when you are stuck. Use it to check for grammatical errors and awkward phrasing in a completed draft. Use it to help you cut down your word count. But the stories, the reflections, the voice, and the words themselves must be your own.
The personal statement is a singular opportunity to communicate directly. Ceding that chance to a machine, no matter how capable, is to misunderstand the assignment entirely. The goal is not to produce a perfect essay; it is to produce a real one.
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About the author
Joe Wallace is a 13-year veteran of the United States Air Force and a former reporter/editor for Air Force Television News and the Pentagon Channel. His freelance work includes contract work for Motorola, VALoans.com, and Credit Karma. He is co-founder of Dim Art House in Springfield, Illinois, and spends his non-writing time as an abstract painter, independent publisher, and occasional filmmaker.
