AI and Your College Process

Can you just “ChatGPT it”?

There is a lot of misinformation out there about correct and ethical usage of generative AI to support the college process. It is worth considering the ways that you could potentially use generative AI for good – and also to note the ways that it might be easy to abuse the principle and start to cross solid ethical boundaries with your AI use. It is important to say right at the outset that all work you submit to a college must be your own – and for great reasons! They are admitting YOU to be a student on their campus and in their classrooms. The work you submit in your application is how they can best evaluate your fit for their program and the value that you’ll add to their community.

That said, there are a lot of really positive ways that ethical use of generative AI can support your college process, both in the discovery and research phases as well as in the application stages.

Discovery and Research:

ChatGPT is a wonderful thought partner to help you brainstorm colleges to fit your criteria!

If your high school uses Naviance, Scoir, or Maia Learning, you can use one of those programs to run an “Advanced College Search” that asks you to put in your “limiting criteria” (student population, geography, majors, admit rates, etc…) and will generate a list of schools to fit this criteria.

ChatGPT will do the same – and more!

Enter a prompt like this one (but use your own criteria):

“You are my college counselor. I am looking for a list of 15 colleges that meet the following specifications: fewer than 8,000 undergraduate students; a pretty campus; a location near a city; a state on either the east or west coast of the US; a strong economics department; great placement opportunities for student internships; some fun campus traditions that bring the community together; and, a basketball team that people like to support”

In response, ChatGPT reminded me about some schools like Davidson College and Santa Clara University, which both fit these specific criteria well, but it also added schools like Gonzaga University and the College of William and Mary, which both also fit this criteria but would not have been right at the front of my mind!

 

Once you find a college you like, ChatGPT can also help you to identify other schools that are similar to that school but might have different admissibilities – therefore be more of a target or a likely on your balanced list.

Enter a prompt like this one (but use your own criteria):
“You are my college counselor. I really loved my recent visit to Georgetown University, but I’m worried because it’s really selective. Can you tell me about 10 schools that have the same vibe and academic focus as Georgetown but that admit more than 20% of the students who apply?”

In response, ChatGPT reminded me about Seattle University, American University, and Villanova University (among others), focusing on the strong spirit and traditions along with parallel academic disciplines.

 

ChatGPT is a wonderful travel agent and can help you to plan your college tours! It can help you think about how long you might want to spend on each campus, how long the travel would be between schools (or from college campus to airport), and also provide you with some other ideas for activities and attractions to explore while you are in town! 

Enter a prompt like this one (but use your own plans):

“I am planning a trip to Chicago to visit colleges (Northwestern, University of Chicago, and Loyola University Chicago). Help me to plan a 4 day trip – I will be flying in on the first morning and leaving on the 4th evening – to see these schools and also gives me a chance to explore the area.”

Not only will ChatGPT help you think about what to do when, it will also give you fun restaurant recommendations and other area attractions to explore!

 

Application Process

As students look at the volume of supplemental essays required by some colleges, it is tempting to consider just outsourcing the writing process to their favorite generative AI “friend” and breezing through the work. However, the essays that ChatGPT creates, while technically executed and on point, lack soul, spirit, originality, and humanity. When you read a lot of college essays every day, it is easy to tell which college essays have been written by generative AI. Students might not craft sentences with the same degree of grammatical correctness, but student writing always feels like it was written by a person.

That said, there are still a number of ways you can utilize the tools of ChatGPT to support your application process. Here are two!

  • Getting your activities list down into the 150 character “Description” box on the Common App: You can ask ChatGPT to help you pare down your activities to fit into the description box on Common App by giving it a prompt like this:

“I need your help writing about my activities. I’d like to have them described in a format that uses only phrases, each starting with a unique verb. The phrases should be separated by a ; punctuation mark. The whole description can be no longer than 150 characters. Now use these rules to describe my work on [insert activity here]”

  • Learning about campus specifics to support your “Why do you want to attend [College Name]?” essays: You can ask ChatGPT to help you with some details that will enhance your writing on your “Why X College?” essays. Say your weekend job at home is in a specialty grocery store. Ask ChatGPT to tell you about the best specialty grocery stores near the college campus. What if you participate in a mentoring program for young musicians in your hometown. Ask ChatGPT to tell you about some of the music-related community service work that students do on that campus. Additionally, have ChatGPT tell you about favorite campus athletic traditions; cozy campus locations to read a good book; the best coffee shop within walking distance of campus; or, remind you of the name of the student internship placement program. A good “Why X College?” essay will include some great proper nouns associated with the school, and ChatGPT is an excellent thought partner to find yours!

Again, it is unethical and wrong to have ChatGPT do more for your process than to participate in some of these exercises. It cannot write your essays, or edit them for you! That said, leveraging the power of generative AI can be supportive of both your list building and writing efforts!

Don’t just take our word for it! Want to learn more? Read these two excellent blog posts from the Georgia Tech Admissions Office:

Juniors, Can we ChatGPT?

Seniors, Can we ChatGPT?


Williams College

A tale of three college visits - which one fits you now?

Here in New England, it seems that winter still has a firm grasp on our weather, but soon, spring will arrive, and high school students and their families will start thinking about embarking on some college visits and campus tours. Your interest may have been piqued by hearing about admission decisions from the older students; you may notice flyers for college fairs posted at school; and you’ll probably be considering or even prepping for standardized tests. But springtime also brings the opportunity for college visits, in three different ways, at three different stages of your higher education journey:

  1. Just Browsing: Younger students may find that winter/spring holidays with the family can be the perfect time to pop over to a college campus. If your vacation travels bring you near a university, I suggest that you take a couple of hours to wander around. It could also be a great opportunity for your parents to enjoy a trip down memory lane if you find yourself close to their alma mater. Walk around, eat a meal in the dining hall, and pop into the Admissions Office to pick up materials. You may even find it possible to jump onto a campus tour. These visits can give you a good idea of the size, the ethos of the university, the culture, and the location. Do you want a college within walking distance of the town? Does the campus look well-maintained? How close is the airport? Public transportation? One question you’ll have is how you would get home during the holidays!
  2. Serious shopping: When spring arrives in earnest, high school juniors will be seriously considering college options, major studies, and lists of likely locations. Remember that you’ll be starting your applications during the summer after your junior year, because you’ll likely be applying to some colleges ‘early’ (November!). So serious college visits, campus tours, classroom visits, and admissions presentations are essential for your information gathering. Try to put together an itinerary that sensibly combines geographic locations – your parents will appreciate that. Always go online and make reservations for student-led tours and presentations. Find out who your admissions representative is and see if you can make an appointment for a one-on-one meeting with her/him. Really take your time now to explore the campus thoroughly and in-depth – check out residence halls, talk to students, examine the library, the computer labs, the science labs, and learn about support services both personal and academic.
  3. Ready to buy: It is true that many students apply to several colleges without ever having set foot on campus. But in spring of your senior year, usually by the end of March, you’ll have all your decisions, and it’s time to take advantage of special campus visits for admitted students. These will include overnight stays, classroom visits in your chosen academic unit, meetings with students and faculty, and a session with the financial aid office. The National College Decision Day is May 1, so all these visits must be completed by then. Parents frequently attend these Admitted Student Visits and are offered their own programs, but they typically won’t be staying on campus with their students. These are the visits that count – you are choosing your new ‘home away from home’!

This tale of three distinctly different types of college visits all ends up in the same place. The moral to be gleaned is that you need to start early, stay focused on your campus research, and have as many experiences under your belt before having to make your final life-changing decisions.