Will ChatGPT be the end of the college essay?  What students need to know

Talk of ChatGPT is just about…everywhere. Much has been written and speculated about how this technology will continue to transform our world. For anyone trying to make sense of the competitive world of college admissions, ChatGPT raises a whole new range of questions about what students will need to do in the application process.

If you’ve heard a rumor that the college essay is now ‘dead,’ read on for why we disagree and 3 ways college essays may change because of ChatGPT–

The College Essay is not dead.

The reasons for this are manyfold. The college essay, Common App essay, or personal statement as it is sometimes referred to, is the soul of the college application. For the most competitive colleges, this essay is not the standalone reason an admissions decision is made, but when rigorous course loads, GPAs, SATs, and activities can look very similar across a group of qualified applicants, the personal essay and the supplemental essays that accompany it provide an opportunity for nuance, authenticity, and voice to shine through. Admissions officers value this, and rely on it to connect with an applicant, envision them as a part of the campus community, and identify the values, experiences, and personal reflection an applicant will contribute.

If you’ve played around with ChatGPT, or even tried getting it to write a college essay, what you will discover is that it can write a passable essay. It can string together sentences that resemble college essays that admissions officers have probably read before. And, those are not the essays of admitted applicants.

ChatGPT cannot replace the key pieces that move decently written essays from good to great. Generally speaking, great college essays are not great because they are technically perfect, but because they form a connection between reader and writer, because they convey a sense of vulnerability, growth, and the wrestling and reflection of a young person looking to make sense of the world and their role within it. For all these reasons, we do not think the college admissions process will eliminate essays anytime soon.

Three trends we may see in admissions with the advent of ChatGPT:

Some Colleges may remove or reduce essay requirements:

The truth is, the college essay is not used interchangeably in all admissions offices. It has the most importance and impact at the most selective institutions. The intense competition in college admissions is actually concentrated to a relatively small portion of colleges. There are already a number of colleges, especially those that are working hard to recruit more applicants, that do not require essays as part of their admissions process. In these cases, they want to reduce the barrier to applying, and with the introduction of a chatbot who can write essays for students, we may see a small increase in the number of colleges that remove essay requirements from their application process. If so, expect these to be colleges with acceptance rates at or above 50%, or at public institutions that are already so intensely overwhelmed with applications that they are not likely giving much attention to essays anyway.

Some colleges may implement more innovative writing & video requirements:

There are already some colleges that provide time-bound supplemental essay prompts, and this is a practice we may see more colleges experiment with. In these cases, colleges provide an online platform where a student cannot see the prompt until logging in, and has a fixed amount of time to write without leaving the screen. Several randomly generated prompts are often used, so it is difficult to game the system and predict what the question will be. This gives an admissions reader a more honest sense of a student’s raw writing and reflection without the aid of adult intervention or chatbot support. Another possibility is we also may see colleges varying their supplemental prompts year over year so that students (and Chatbots) can rely less on past responses.

There are a small but growing number of colleges who offer or require the submission of a video response. Sometimes these give students time to craft and edit ahead, other times the student has to login, receive a prompt and respond within a fixed amount of time, to get a more off the cuff response. We are curious to see if this practice increases.

Some colleges will double down on the importance of quality essays:

If the purpose of the college essay is to bring forward the nuance of a student’s experience, perspective, insights, and vision for their future, some colleges double down on the importance of this kind of authenticity. We may see some highly selective colleges place additional emphasis on the strength of thought, reflection, and care in applicant’s written submissions.

No matter what happens in admissions or technological advancements, the college essay writing process will remain a valuable experience for young people. At its best, the personal and supplemental essay writing process invites a student to explore who they are, what factors have shaped them, and how they envision themselves contributing to the world as they grow, academically and personally. ChatGPT just can’t approximate those intangibles.

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