For a period of several years in the mid-2000’s when Facebook grabbed hold of the high school audience, I heard the same question from at least one student or parent at every college admissions presentation I gave:
Will admissions officers look at your Facebook profiles?
Believe it or not, many kids chose to keep their profiles public in those days. Social media was still new and exciting for teens, and parents hadn’t yet jumped on the Facebook bandwagon (which ultimately sent teens fleeing from the platform). It wasn’t yet obvious to most of the world that the internet never forgets—once you put it out there publicly, it’s almost impossible to take it all back.
I’d explain that while I’d yet to find a college that encouraged admissions officers to look up applicants on social media, those people reading your application are human, after all. They get curious, just like the rest of us. If they wanted to look up an applicant, nobody was going to stop them. Why take the risk? Ratchet up your privacy settings or just get off Facebook altogether.
Two decades later, a new technology has spawned a new version of a similar question:
Will admissions officers know if an applicant uses AI?
The obvious difference here is that a public Facebook profile did not present the last admissions generation with a potential application advantage. It would happily post whatever a user decided to share, but it wasn’t going to write a college essay for you. It was risk-or-nothing, which made the decision an easy one.
Today’s applicants see how ChatGPT might give them an edge. It will generate a response to your Common App prompt or your Stanford short answer or your Why this college? essay. It will take your direction and do the work for you, with no concern for the potential consequences. You might even love what it brings back to you. But if the person reading your essay finds out ChatGPT wrote it for you, you’re not getting in. Why take the risk?
Like so many sectors of the workplace and the world, colleges are still figuring out the most responsible and effective ways to use this technology. But they do know how to use AI detection tools (which work well, by the way). And more importantly, AI is not human, and it’s not you. Experienced readers can tell the difference.
Our college counselors and editors can almost always tell when a student’s essay is ChatGPT generated. It just sounds different when we read it. The writing might even be good, but something just feels off. Admissions officers have the same superpower—they can just tell when something’s not right (pro tip: the same risk applies when a parent writes portions of the essay, by the way).
More importantly, if your goal is to stand out, you’re not going to do it by using a robot that’s happy to answer the same essay prompt for any other applicant who asks.
For more than 25 years, we’ve taught our Collegewise students a simple but powerful college essay concept: own your story. Write a story that nobody else could write by injecting details that are uniquely yours. Your experience playing on the basketball team or earning your black belt in karate or taking care of your little sister after school is not the same as those of any other student who did those things. Details make the difference. And those details are unique to you.
If you want to use ChatGPT to clean up your spelling or grammar, to give you feedback, or to do anything else you might ask your school counselor or English teacher to do, that’s a different story. Colleges are fine with students seeking appropriate help and advice from trustworthy sources.
But like those applicants decades ago who kept their Facebook profiles public, todays’ students who use ChatGPT to write their essays are taking an unnecessary risk. And the penalty far outweighs any potential reward.
/Kevin%20Blog%20Subscription%20CTA%20(1).png?width=800&height=267&name=Kevin%20Blog%20Subscription%20CTA%20(1).png)
About Us: With more than twenty years of experience, Collegewise counselors and tutors are at the forefront of the ever-evolving admissions landscape. Our work has always centered on you: the student. And just like we’ve always done, we look for ways for you to be your best self - whether it’s in the classroom, in your applications or in the right-fit college environment. Our range of tools include counseling, test prep, academic tutoring, and essay management, all with the support of our proprietary platform, leading to a 4x higher than average admissions rates.
