Do College Admissions Check for AI?

Students report that college admissions are one of their biggest sources of stress, and a study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that 46.9% of college students use LLMs in coursework.

As a result, colleges may use AI detectors and other tools to identify AI in schoolwork and for research — but do college admissions check for AI?

Yes, college admissions check for AI, although AI detection policies can vary by college. 

Read on to learn why college admissions may be concerned about AI-written application essays and how they check for AI in the admissions process.

Key Takeaways (TL;DR)

• Yes, many college admissions do check for AI.
• Admissions officers check for AI to properly evaluate student skills and experiences, prevent unfair advantages, and maintain academic integrity.
• College admissions often use a mix of human expertise and software to evaluate applications.
• It’s best practice to review AI policies for admissions before submitting an application.

Why Do College Admissions Check for AI?

Admissions officers review thousands of applications each year, and part of that process may involve checking for AI in personal essays.

Here are some of the reasons college admissions may check for AI as part of their review process:

To accurately evaluate a student’s abilities and experiences

A mainstay of college applications, the personal essay is one of the best ways for admissions officers to get to know each prospective student. It’s a way for applicants to show off their skills and experience.

“Be authentic” is first on Harvard’s list of tips for writing the perfect college essay, which is something that AI-generated text just can’t provide in a personal essay.

To prevent unfair advantages

AI-generated text and images may seem like they’re everywhere these days, but this technology still isn’t equally accessible to everyone. This can give students with access to advanced AI tools an unfair advantage.

For example, AI-savvy students can use the technology to write, edit, and perfect their essays. Checking for AI use enables admissions officers to level the playing field by ensuring that everyone is being judged for their own, original work.

To maintain academic integrity

The International Center for Academic Integrity lists six fundamental values of academic integrity, including honesty and fairness. 

With most universities and colleges having an academic integrity policy, admissions officers aim to uphold these ethical standards by ensuring students submit original work in their applications.

How Do Colleges Check for AI in Application Essays?

Many colleges and university admissions offices use a combination of technology and human reviewers to check for AI in applications.

AI content detection tools and software

According to a survey by Intelligent, about 50% of higher education institutions currently use AI in the admissions process, with more than 23% planning to implement it in the future. 

Several AI tools have emerged in response to this demand for AI detection in education.

A lot goes into how AI content detection works, but generally speaking, these tools use advanced algorithms and machine learning to determine the likelihood of AI-written text. 

For example, let’s say an admissions officer runs an applicant’s essay through an AI detector. At the end of the scan, they receive an AI detection score of 10% Original and 90% Likely AI, meaning the tool has 90% confidence that the essay likely contains AI-generated content.

Note the use of “Likely AI” there. According to several AI detection accuracy studies, AI detectors like the Originality.ai AI Checker have high efficacy. However, AI detectors can produce false positives and shouldn’t be the only way to evaluate academic or educational standing.

In case an AI detector flags an essay with a false positive, students can use a free AI Detector Chrome Extension to show their writing process from start to finish in Google Docs.

Human review

Experienced college admissions officers have sorted through hundreds, if not thousands, of applications throughout their careers. So, they may be able to tell if something seems “off” with an essay. 

Reporters from The Washington Post put this to the test in their article Can ChatGPT Get Into Harvard? They presented an Ivy League college admissions counselor with ChatGPT-generated and human-written essays to see if he could tell the difference. 

Well, it turns out that he could identify the AI essays by the following signs:

• Vague writing and examples.
• Random writing that jumps around from topic to topic.
• Irrelevant details that add nothing to the text.
• Lack of originality, including the use of cliches.

In addition to these signs, admissions officers often use triangulation for a more holistic view of student applications. They look for themes, correlations, and consistency throughout their essays, recommendation letters, and interviews to see if everything matches up.

However, AI-generated text can be difficult to manually identify in many cases. 

A separate study from the Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons found that evaluators successfully differentiated between AI and human medical residency applications 65.9% of the time. Read our study, Can Humans Detect AI-Generated Text? to learn more.

Final Thoughts

Students should learn the AI policy of every college on their list before using it at all, and if policies aren’t clear ask the admissions office for more clarity. There’s nothing quite like getting into college on your own merit!

Interested in learning more about AI detection for education? Check out Originality.ai for educators.