What happens when AI is hiding inside
Imagine: Your application is the stunning Trojan Horse, towering above awestruck admissions officers. Your profile so far is one the Greek gods would be jealous of. Just look at those academics, those honors, those test scores! They might just be worthy of a relief someday.
The admissions officers yell to open the gates! This is one of the student profiles they’ve been looking for.
Your application rolls inside the fortified citadel. It is bold in the courtyard before the open portal. Right now, you have their full attention.
Only on the inside, it isn’t you.
On the inside, AI lie in wait.
When they start to get to the writing sections in particular, something is starting to shift. Someone taps on the belly of the towering horse…and it seems…hollow?
The writing sections unfold. They’re flatter than a bug your horse rolled over on the way in.
It’s not even that they’re exactly bad, but they’re just, flat. They’re boring. They’re not you. They’re not your voice. The essays can’t tell of your epic story because you haven’t taken the time to go on the writing journey to discover it. They lack the idiosyncrasies and deeper reflection that would have made you you.
AI jumps out of the horse’s belly. Someone faints. Admissions officers take up arms against the unveiled AI.
It’s over.
Why it’s so tempting
I completely understand why it’s so tempting to use AI on your college app essays. You’re busy with senior year. You have so much going on between academics and activities, spending time with friends and family, and now when classes are getting more challenging you have all these applications added to your to do list.
And now, we have this tool like Circe’s rhabdos that could transform it into a full crafted essay. It could just…be done.
Why you should resist the temptation
In giving into this temptation, you’re surrendering one of the most impactful areas of the application.
This is where you get to talk to the admissions officers in your voice. This is where they get to connect with you.
When I worked as an admissions officer, sometimes reading 40-60 applications a day, the essays were the section where I connected with students the most. Yes, I cared about everything else on their profile. I cared about the structure of the horse.
But what was INSIDE mattered.
University is an intellectual, creative community. It is the collaboration of minds to continue the innovation and legacy of humanity. I want to know the mind of who I am admitting.
And writing are minds across time and space talking to one another.
I don’t want a hollow horse. I want a horse with substance. One that I can trust and get to know.
As a counselor, I’ve had some students use AI in their writing journey. It doesn’t work well, at any point. It limits your own mind’s creativity and innovation by outsourcing it to a glorified bot.
For those that use it in brainstorming, they’re hindering their thoughts. Trepidation creeps in. They don’t trust themselves, what they’re doing, or why they’re doing it. They’re relying on something that can’t give them earned confidence. Essays that stem of this, even if written by the student, lack the connection and conviction that make writing soar.
For students that use it in writing, they’re sacrificing their voice. I’ve had a student use it on a paragraph they’d had a hard time writing, and it gunked up the whole flow. They had a great style and voice, and in that moment, they destroyed everything they’d been crafting! (Don’t worry–we talked and they edited it out!) Yes, a paragraph had underlying problems that needed a bit more refining, but AI was not the answer. Reassessing and rewriting did the trick!
For those that use it on their whole essay. Sure, maybe it’s decently okay. AI understands a basic writing template. But with that, it lacks so much of the excitement and variety that will actually CONNECT and IMPRESS admissions officers. AI also tends to write the same. Once admissions officers suspect it, it’s out. Don’t risk it.
What you show by writing in your voice
Right now, discussions on dwindling attention spans are everywhere. Technology is taking away our attention span and willingness or ability to do hard things.
By working through the writing process, maybe even having to pave through a treacherous path, you are already demonstrating that sustained attention. You’re sticking with it! You are exploring potentials, making mistakes, rewriting, and rediscovering the depth of what you really want to say.
All of this helps to show your creative and critical thinking. These are two qualities that admissions officers want to see. The writing sections are one of the best places to demonstrate this.
What happens when you trust yourself and embrace the process
Writing is a process. This is an important moment. I completely understand the self-doubt and procrastination-freeze that can creep in. It’s even okay if those emotions loom, but you have to move past them! Clearer skies are up ahead. Often times starting with something small (brainstorming an idea, writing a sentence) or mentally lowering the stakes helps the storm to calm.
When you start to understand that writing is a process, you become more forgiving with yourself. Writing is nonlinear, and you can (and should) revisit any stage of the process as you need to. You allow grace to meet yourself where you are. And you won’t end in the same place you started if you keep with it.
The funny thing about writing, is that sometimes you learn what you actually want to say and what you actually need to be writing by writing.
Then, you go back, redraft, and keep going.
This is how writing deepens and evolves. You shouldn’t be turning in a first draft anyway. Taking your time and trusting the process allows for more surprises. You might make a connection that has a fresh insight or remember a prominent detail that adds that je ne sais quoi, chef’s kiss.
You don’t have to write alone!
You absolutely do not want to surrender all the benefits of writing your own essays. That said, I know that actually writing them does take more time, attention, and effort.
Whether you feel excited or apprehensive about the journey, you don’t have to do it alone.
I’ve worked in admissions for over a decade and hold an MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics. I’ve read essays in the hundreds as an admissions officer and counselor and taught undergraduate writing courses.
I’ve designed my online courses as a synthesis of all my wisdom across these disciplines to distill the most important information. My writing approach is generative and process-oriented. I help students to meet themselves where they are in the college app journey and guide them naturally through each step of the process. They find a grounded understanding of themselves, confidence in key components of their application, and trust in a process that provides a supportive framework.
Make sure your application isn’t a hollow horse. Learn more about my courses and services.
Christina Chady has worked in undergraduate admissions for over a decade. She started my career as an admissions officer for WashU (a Top 20 School), where she learned the intricate operations of a competitive admissions office. Christina later worked for multiple international admissions consulting groups in addition to private counseling. She’s helped students gain admissions to universities such as Harvard, UPenn, Brown, Cornell, Columbia, Stanford, UChicago, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UMichigan, to name a few.
Christina graduated from WashU with Honors, earning double majors in Anthropology and International & Area Studies with a minor in Photography. She also hold an MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics from Naropa University, where I was a Graduate Writing Fellow and taught undergraduate writing courses.