The admissions essay you write should be your own
My social media feeds have been allatwitter for some time about how the artificial intelligence (AI) bot ChatGPTcould affect college admissions essays. Concern abounds that applicants willbegin to use ChatGPT to generate admission essays that respond to collegeapplication prompts.
Ina column for Inside Higher Education, Jim Jump, a seasoned counselor to highschool seniors applying to college, recounted his experience being asked byForbes magazine to weigh in on an essay generated by ChatGPT and definitivelydetermine whether or not it was written by a person.
“Iprobably couldn’t detect the AI authorship,” Jump wrote, but he pointed outthat he “wouldn’t label the essays as convincing.” They were cliched and didnot respond to the prompt convincingly. “They also didn’t sound like an essay ateenager would write, but rather an essay a teenager might write with majorassistance and editing by an adult.”
Shortlyafter I read Jump’s column, I saw a post on LinkedIn that mentioned embracingAI is crucial for aspiring students and job seekers. The poster pointed out howChatGPT could write your admission essay for you, adding that high-pricedadmissions consultants who are hired to assist students with all aspects oftheir college admission process, including the essay, “are going to face toughdays soon.”
Whyis there so much fuss about prospective students using ChatGPT or similar AItools to write their essays for them when many students with means have hiredadmissions consultants to “assist” them with their college application essaysfor years?
Itis likely no easier to detect whether an admissions consultant wrote an essayfor a student than it would be to determine whether ChatGPT did. In fact, asthe technology evolves, it might become easier to detect ChatGPT’s work thanthe work of a seasoned admissions counselor.
Anethical admissions counselor, of course, should never write an applicationessay for a client. But if an application instructs applicants that they shouldnot have someone else write or edit their essay for them, the line between“edit” and “coach” might be blurry. (Summon the angry letters from seasonedadmissions consultants.)
Ifcoaching involves giving a prospective student general advice, that seems fair.Such advice might be to make sure to actually answer the prompt, to make surethey try to include personal examples that could only come from them, toproofread their work. You know, basic stuff any high school senior should havelearned in school but may not have taken to heart at the time.
Thereal question college admissions committees should be asking is whether theyare explicit in their instructions that an applicant’s work should be theirown. Having them sign a statement that indicates they did not rely on AI bots nor any one person to write, rewrite or heavily edit their work doesn’tguarantee they won’t, but it becomes a first test of a prospective student’sintegrity. If they know that violating their agreement risks losing admission,that might give them pause. But the real reason students should do their ownwork is because it might give the admissions committee a sense of the personbehind the essay … and because it’s the right thing to do.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.
Follow him on Twitter @jseglin
