As a longtime admissions essay consultant and the founder of College Essay Advisors, anytime news is announced in the world of writing education or college admissions, I receive a flurry of text messages. So you can imagine the avalanche that crashed down when OpenAI announced the release of its most recent AI-powered text generator, ChatGPT.
“Is this the end of the college admissions essay?” “Will students even need to learn how to write anymore?” “Are you worried?” “Are you worried?” “STACEY, ARE YOU WORRIED?!”
To address the last and most frequently lobbed question first: No, I am not worried, not one bit. If there are any arenas that are safe from the circuit-driven claws of AI, they are the bastions of creativity, sincerity, and humanity, and these are essential ingredients in a successful college admissions essay.
Like so many others interested in the impact of this technology on the admissions process, I have spent the last six months immersed in ChatGPT, feeding it questions and requests, trying my darndest to help it assemble or at least approximate the stories of a living, breathing teenager with 17 years worth of personal history and reflection to unpack. I am here to tell you that, no, the college admissions essay is not dead. Yes, students still have to learn how to write (and that’s a good thing). And no, I am not worried about our future as humans or writers or communicators. AI is a tool and we will learn how to use it to its best effect. It just so happens, it’s not an effective tool for personal essay writing.
As I see it, there are three core reasons why:
1. ChatGPT can build on ideas, but it can’t generate a winning topic for you.
One of the most daunting challenges of writing a winning college admissions essay is deciding what to write about. This is a process that often requires many rounds of brainstorming, journaling, spitballing, and head-against-wall-banging. Magic topics are often found in the middle of freewriting that students consider to be throwaway material at first, or are spun out of random mentions of a favorite car model or a “record my dad put on last Christmas.” AI is not built to have these generative conversations with you — at least not yet. It doesn’t know your history and the stream of adventures you’ve been on. It won’t ask you about the time you climbed Mount Fuji or your indie comic book fandom or figure out that your most important bonding moments with your mom happened during your 5 a.m. car rides to gymnastics. Until AI can access your most formative memories and foundational feelings (I know, I’m sure the technology to facilitate these connections is coming), the only one who can do the work of excavating a meaningful topic from the depths of your psyche is you.
2. Since ChatGPT doesn’t know you, much of what it writes “about you” is a lie.
Unless you are Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Lawrence, or another famous person (not necessarily a Jennifer), the internet likely does not yet contain enough interviews with or information about you to compile an accurate, compelling picture of your life. Even the Jennifers would likely have complaints about the way AI represents them. I have fed the bot many prompts, and despite the fact that, or perhaps because ChatGPT is pulling from random sources around the internet, the story it concocts may feel similar to one I’ve lived, but it will never be my authentic story. You may, for example, ask AI to write an essay about someone who works in a clothing store and realizes their passion for business (in the voice of a 17-year-old, please!), but it will never be the full truth. Instead, ChatGPT might suggest you tell admissions (as it did for me when I provided the above prompt):
I gained valuable insight into the importance of teamwork and collaboration. In the fast-paced environment of the store, we worked as a tight-knit unit, ensuring every task was executed seamlessly. Whether it was restocking shelves, arranging displays, or handling the point-of-sale system, teamwork was essential to maintaining the store’s efficiency.
While much of this is probably true, some of it may not be. Was your team truly tight-knit? Did you actually restock shelves or arrange displays? While these are easy details to swap in and out, the foundation of the story is built on a disconcertingly generic skeleton. Where are anecdotes about personal connections? How is this not the story of anyone who has ever worked in retail? By the time you adjust these details or feed the bot enough prompts to get the specifics right, you might as well have just written the essay from scratch, without crossing any ethical lines and with your own panache. Which brings us to my next point:
3. ChatGPT essays are reductive, formulaic, and generally a snoozefest.
Take the opening paragraph of the essay I sourced:
As I walked into my first job at a local clothing store, I had no idea how much it would shape my perspective on the world and ignite my passion for business. What began as a means to earn some extra cash during high school turned into an eye-opening experience that taught me invaluable skills and nurtured my aspirations for a future in entrepreneurship.
About as basic as an opening paragraph can be. Even if you, as I did, ask the bot to make the opening line less predictable, here is what you get:
As I nervously stepped through the doors of a bustling local clothing store, little did I know that this seemingly mundane job would unlock a world of possibilities, sparking an insatiable curiosity for business within me.
Just another tasteless flavor of the same-word soup sentence. Compare these to some of my favorite opening sentences from past college essays I’ve advised on:
“Most people have ten toes, but my dad only has five.”
“No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the carrot to dance.”
“I was born in the birthplace of maple taffy, raised on the island of tea sandwiches, and matured into adulthood in the land of Betty Crocker.”
AI will not provide that burst of creative, unexpected writing that really captures an admissions officer’s attention because to ensure you get what you’re asking for, a bot has to pull from generalities. The ideas that are interesting because they are yours live only inside your head.
Ultimately, the college admissions essay is supposed to help an admissions officer get to know students better on a personal level. It’s supposed to show the people who review the applications the people behind them. Students who rely on AI to present themselves in this capacity are doing themselves a disservice. Believe it or not, you are smarter, more original, and more interesting than a computer — and no one knows you like you do.
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