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At CEA, we aren’t afraid to say it: using AI to compose your college admissions essays is not only dishonest, it’s also one of the worst ways for you to embark on a learning journey that’s meant to be the foundation of your adult life—and is easy for admissions to spot! Though you are relatively early on in this journey, the educated and well-read admissions officers are not and they’ve read enough original writing to know when an essay has not been crafted by a student. Read on for a few reasons why using AI tools to compose your essay is obvious to readers and why we will shout from the rooftops: it’s just not worth it!
Although, to the untrained eye, AI copy can seem intelligent and smooth, it is often chillingly vague and rote. (And admissions officers are some of the most trained eyes out there!) Sure, it can spit out 500 words quickly, but are they 500 words anyone wants to read? After even a couple sentences, admissions will know that the copy is not from the heart of a student, especially when it describes their time in high school as “an enriching four years of learning new skills and academic practices that were achieved with hard work, determination, and dedication.” See what’s going on there? The vagueness can be cut with a butter knife. It will leave admissions wondering, who is this robot and why did they let them go to school among other human teenagers? Sure it sounds “smart” with four and five-syllable words, but it’s actually very redundant and leaves a lot to be desired in terms of actual storytelling.
AI doesn’t know that asking a boy to the Sadie Hawkins dance made your hands shake. It doesn’t know how it felt when you had to nearly shout to get your teacher’s attention when you had been overlooked in a class of 34 students for weeks. It also doesn’t know that you’d describe Korean short ribs as “a sublime step away from the usual Texas Roadhouse beef ribs” you ate as a child and “were the gateway into Asian cooking” you needed as an amateur chef. It’s details like these that make your reader’s eyes engage with the text and want to keep reading. Though it’s hard to define, there really is an effect of AI writing that makes eyes glaze over and readers lose interest very quickly, and it has to do with lack of human emotion and an inner life behind actions. The “why” is so important here, and only you know what motivates you, scares you, and underscores every move you make in life.
Any teacher can spot the ramblings of a writer looking to meet word counts a mile away, and admissions officers are especially adept at clocking them. AI tends to utilize general synonyms like dedication, determination, diligence, hard work, commitment, etc. It also loves the three-word list. We have it on good authority from our staff members at CEA who also work in other professional editing fields that these three-word lists are rampant in AI-generated texts and become very obvious quickly. For example, “As a camp counselor, I foster caring, uplifting, and edifying friendships while teaching kids to be thoughtful, kind, and compassionate.” AI can’t get enough of these three-word structures, and they’re often intended to pad the text and reach word count. Admissions knows when an essay is repeating something or restating in order to lengthen rather than expound upon details to enrich the story. 650 words sounds like a lot, but it truly isn’t when it comes to one of the few chances you have to speak in your own voice in your application.
Nothing loses a reader’s trust and interest quicker than an age-old cliche. I want to make the world a better place. Lifelong learning is my goal as a student of the world. True friends are friends for life. Maybe the journey is the destination all along. Bored yet? So are admissions readers! These phrases pop up in AI-generated text because they’re all over the internet already, and guess where that copy your scraping comes from? BINGO.
AI is inherently biased and uses existing writing from all over the internet. Think about it, if the content of the AI copy is from a faulty source, wouldn’t that mean the output is also faulty? We’ve all seen by now how AI imaging has proven to be biased (e.g., an AI-generated image of a doctor will often come out as a man rather than a woman), and that is also true for copywriting. Additionally, this copy isn’t appearing out of thin air; software is scraping data from various sources that were generated by real humans who took the time to put them in print. You wouldn’t just copy and paste from existing essays, would you? Neither should you think that AI is somehow any different. And as we stated earlier, it’s not just that there are moral issues at play here, it is actually obvious for many reasons that you’ve used AI, and admissions is as keen as ever to spot when it’s in play. You owe it to your future to put in the effort now; don’t be tempted by quick fixes that will leave a bad taste in your reader’s mouth.
We know the application process can be daunting, but we promise, you have a story to tell and the words to tell it in you already. If you’re still in doubt, don’t hesitate to reach out to our trusted advisors who are experienced and here to help with the whole process!
