How Can I Use AI to Help Me with College Admissions Prep?

AI can be a useful tool, but it’s important to use it the right way when it comes to college prep. In this episode of the Just Admit It! podcast, IvyWise admissions experts Tasha and Rachel discuss when it’s appropriate for students to use AI in college admissions and when they should avoid it.

Key Takeaways

• AI can support students in organization, test prep, brainstorming, and early-stage research, but it should never replace guidance from counselors, teachers, parents, or other trusted adults.
• AI can help overwhelmed students manage timelines, prioritize tasks, and break large admissions-related workloads into manageable steps, especially during junior and senior year.
• When students feel stuck or anxious, AI can be used in the college admissions process to provide structured suggestions for where to start, helping them regain momentum — but it should complement, not replace, human support systems.
• AI can generate study schedules, highlight areas to review, and suggest balanced approaches to practice and reflection, serving as a helpful starting framework for standardized test preparation.
•  AI works best for high-level comparisons when doing college research — such as differences in teaching style, school culture, or honors colleges.
• Admissions data such as acceptance rates, testing policies, and enrollment strategies should always be cross-checked with official university sources like Common Data Sets and college websites.
• AI-generated essays tend to be overly polished, predictable, and formulaic, relying on common tropes that admissions officers quickly recognize.
• AI writing often sounds “too neat” and lacks authentic meaning. Colleges value genuine voice and honest reflection more than perfectly wrapped conclusions; it’s okay for students not to have everything figured out.
• Students may responsibly use AI to generate reflective questions, explore themes, or think about experiences worth writing about, especially early in the process.
• While AI may help students organize early thoughts, overreliance can lead to formulaic structures that make essays sound generic or AI-generated.
• The strongest applications emerge from reflection, conversation, and input from people who know the student well — not from isolated engagement with AI tools.

Podcast Transcript

Tasha:

Hi there. Welcome to semester 12, episode one of the Ivy Wise Just Admit It! podcast, where former deans and directors of admission give expert insight into the complex college admissions landscape. I’m Tasha, your host.

I’m an admissions counselor at IvyWise, a former international admissions officer at USC, and former assistant director of international admissions at Boston University. Please feel free to email us your most pressing college admissions questions anytime at [email protected].

This season on the show, we’re going to be hopping into FAQs and college admissions. We’ll be spending each episode focusing on a frequently asked question and breaking it down to answer it thoroughly.

Today’s episode: How should or shouldn’t I use AI as part of my college prep? To help me answer this question is my colleague, Premier Admissions Counselor Rachel. Hi, Rachel. Could you please introduce yourself?

Rachel:

Hi, Tasha. Yes, I’m happy to be here. I’m Rachel, an admissions counselor with IvyWise. I got my admissions first experience working in the admissions office at Swarthmore College. I’ve been working with IvyWise for 10 years now, so a lot of experience on the counseling side. I’m really excited to talk about this very pressing question regarding AI and college admissions.

Tasha:

To your point, you’ve been at IvyWise for 10 years, so you’ve really seen the landscape change quite a bit even in that period of time, right?

Yes. AI has only been on the horizon since ChatGPT launched in late 2022. It’s not just about ChatGPT, but we’ll talk about different questions students should be asking themselves as they think about ways to use or not use AI in the college admissions process.

But I really appreciate the experience you have and the length of time you’ve been at IvyWise to help us think through how new this technology is. Thank you again for being here with me today. All right, let’s dig in. There has been so much buzz in the last few years about how AI is affecting students in high school and college, specifically in the classroom. But this, of course, is also affecting other parts of their lives, like the college admissions process.

We know students are using AI, but this is where it’s important for us to talk about how we recommend it could be used and where it would jeopardize a student’s academic integrity. I’m glad we’re having this conversation to kick off the season. I think acknowledging the reality of the landscape we’re in is vital; to pretend it’s not happening would be the first mistake. Before we get into the bulk of our conversation, why do you think this is one of the most frequently asked questions when students go to Google to ask about the admissions process?

Rachel:

It’s interesting. I think we’re all curious about what AI can do for us.

There’s still so much to explore. For many of us, it’s a relatively new and powerful tool. It’s a reasonable question for people to be exploring: “What can AI do for me?” I think there’s also an expectation that young people need a certain familiarity with AI, especially when thinking about joining the workforce and being able to use the tools that we have. So, it makes perfect sense that students are exploring how AI can be a useful tool.

Tasha:

I think parents are also afraid of AI’s potential downfalls, or they want to make sure their students aren’t going to get in trouble. That’s why this conversation is so important; we’re not denying that this is part of the process for many students.

It certainly doesn’t have to be, but we’re going to talk about ways in which it can actually be quite helpful if used in a thoughtful and strategic way. So, without further ado, let’s categorize some of the different ways that AI can be a useful tool in the college admissions process.

I think first and foremost, it’s staying organized. What do we mean by that?

Rachel:

Well, I think any first-semester senior will tell you that there’s an incredible increase in your workload as you bring in all the extra work for the college admissions process, along with what is arguably the most demanding time in both your classes and your extracurriculars. From the second semester of junior year through the first semester of senior year, there’s just a lot to manage.

AI can help you come up with ways to stay organized, whether that’s prioritizing long-term and short-term work so you can stay on top of everything, adding reminders, or just helping you stay a little more organized. That’s certainly one way an AI tool could help you better manage a calendar.

Tasha:

It sounds so obvious — “How can I get more organized?” — and I think this could be applied to anyone. As counselors or parents listening who work in any field, we could all be thinking about how to stay better organized. It’s like a basic life skill, right? But when it comes to senior year or even the end of junior year, part of why staying organized is so important is because students are multitasking. Having a way to stay organized that doesn’t take that much time and effort — you can outsource that organization to an AI — is huge.

Rachel:

I think there’s a real potential to feel overwhelmed. Usually, I could see a student going to an adult, a parent, or a teacher and saying, “I’m really overwhelmed. I have all of these things weighing on me and I don’t even know where to start.”

I think that is something you could run by an AI as well. Anyone who has interacted with an AI knows it can be almost funny how comforting it is when it talks back to you, acknowledging that you’re human and dealing with a lot.

It provides a bit of comfort that could make you feel better or even chuckle, but it also gives a real breakdown: “This is manageable. Start here, prioritize this, and this can wait.”

Whether you’re being proactive and using ChatGPT to stay organized, or you just find yourself sitting at your desk not knowing where to start — perhaps with SAT prep coming up and college essays on the horizon — an AI tool can come in handy. In those moments of overwhelm, it can show you where to start. It doesn’t necessarily replace a reliable adult in your life but using it in conjunction with real people can be really handy.

Tasha:

Thank you so much for that, Rachel, and for making that important distinction. We would never recommend that AI replace a trusted, responsible adult that you go to for advice.

So, let’s talk about a couple of the other basic, useful ways that AI can be a tool. I think one of the major ones is test preparation. We’d like all students to assume schools will require tests, as the landscape continues to change. Of course, students can access test prep resources through their schools, tutoring, or through the testing sources themselves, like the College Board or the ACT.

But how can AI come in handy when it comes to test prep?

Rachel:

Yeah, I was curious about this myself. I went to ChatGPT and said, “I’m taking the SAT in six months, help me prepare.” It actually gave a pretty reasonable overview of where to start — what to focus on for the first month, and then for months two through four.

It flagged review as being just as important as practice. Reviewing questions you missed or materials you think you’ve already mastered is a really helpful way to bring structure to test prep. It shared some resources as well, but the real value was breaking out those big tasks and identifying starting places for something that can feel overwhelming. Beyond just taking practice tests, it gives you other things you can do.

This is information that AI is synthesizing for us. You could certainly find it yourself, but it’s nice to see it laid out in a way that makes sense. Again, it gives you a starting place and structure in terms of what to prioritize and what to look for in your first practice test. It arguably provides a level of expertise on how to prep. I think it could be helpful.

Tasha:

Yeah, and I think that goes back to what you said earlier, Rachel, about helping students who might be feeling overwhelmed. The question you posed makes so much sense: “Hey, this is when I’m taking the test. What do you recommend as a test prep schedule?”

It’s a starting point that can help ease the overwhelm of not knowing where to begin. But again, it does not fully replace other test prep resources you might have available. Definitely make sure you’re using the resources available at your school and in your community.

The other really important category is preliminary college exploration. Once again, AI can be a useful starting point in addition to talking to your college counselors, teachers, and other influential adults. Have you tested this out as well, Rachel? Have you entered a prompt like, “I’m a student at XY school, I’m interested in this subject and a particular region of the country”? What kind of answers have you gotten?

Rachel:

It’s interesting, because we’re getting into the importance of the prompt to get better results. I actually asked Perplexity to tell me all the schools in California, and it said no because that wasn’t a defined enough category.

I had to be more specific. Are we talking about four-year schools or two-year schools? You can certainly use AI to generate a preliminary list if you know you want midsize schools in the Northeast, for example.

But I find AI to be most helpful for specific comparisons. It’s a great starting place for preliminary research into things like how teaching styles and educational experiences differ between schools.

For instance, how is the teaching style different at Duke versus Skidmore versus UGA? Comparing and contrasting in that way might highlight things that are really meaningful to a student. At larger universities, when are you going to see a professor versus a TA? I think those comparisons are very helpful.

Another thing I’ve been looking at with students is honors colleges at state flagship schools.

So that would be another thing I’d be curious to know: What are the differences between the honors colleges at the University of Georgia, the University of Pittsburgh, and the honors program at American University? How are they the same, how are they different, and how might that impact what you’re looking for in your experience?

I think comparing and contrasting is a really helpful way to get interesting insight. Another benefit is that it takes you away from potential misinformation — or at least makes it less of an issue than when you’re asking for specific stats like acceptance rates.

If you aren’t looking at where the AI is pulling its data from, you need to be careful. You could certainly use it to generate lists with acceptance rates and “middle 50%” stats, but you have to make sure those numbers are accurate. To really get into the nuances, I feel like the comparing and contrasting feature is super helpful.

Tasha:

I hadn’t even thought of that, Rachel; I’m actually going to apply that. But I think you bring up a really good point that I want to re-emphasize before we move on: checking sources.

It is important to acknowledge that these tools are not perfect. They make mistakes or may be pulling from corners of the Internet that aren’t the best sources. When it comes to admission rates, that data changes every year. Checking the university websites and the Common Data Set they release annually will provide the most up-to-date information. While some stats don’t vary much, others — like the percentage of a class admitted through Early Decision — can make a big difference in a student’s strategy or decision-making.

You really want to make sure you’re checking the original source to see if that’s where the AI is pulling the information. If not, you need to double-check its work.

As promised, we’re now going to address one of the main ways most students, parents, and teachers are concerned about using AI. And that’s when it comes to writing college essays or supplemental essays for the admissions process.

Rachel, you did a very interesting exercise for the IvyWise KnowledgeBase. If listeners haven’t checked out the KnowledgeBase, it’s in the same section of our website as the podcast. I highly recommend it; you can plug keywords into the search bar and find articles addressing almost any question you have. It’s a great resource written by counselors like us.

Rachel wrote a blog where she actually put AI to the test regarding college essay writing. Can you tell us about that? Was it almost like a science experiment? Did you have a hypothesis going into this?

Rachel:

Yes. I felt pretty sure that what ChatGPT delivered would not work as a college admissions essay — and that was true; you could not submit it. I recently went back and looked at it again, and it’s funny because it already feels a little dated even though it was only a few months ago.

I gave ChatGPT some prompts about a student’s interests and extracurriculars and asked it to write an essay. It did, but I don’t think we’re really talking about students having AI write an entire essay and submitting that as their work anymore. I think the reality is a lot more gray.

I found that what it delivered was interesting because I could see a student working backwards from the product. The essay highlighted some interesting things this theoretical student did to pursue their interests. For example, this student was a student-athlete interested in the mechanics of movement. In the essay, the “student” wrote about learning team warmups on YouTube.

I thought, “Actually, that’s a great idea.” If you want to learn more about the mechanics of movement to be a safe, strong athlete and maximize your potential, you could search for resources on YouTube and potentially implement them with your team or coach. Those are recommendations I could see myself making to a student with those interests. Because ChatGPT delivered it in essay form, you can look at the finished essay and think, “Oh, there are some interesting ideas in here that I could take and work out on my own.”

What if you were doing this as a sophomore? And then you think, “I could work with my coach. I could do these things.” So, that was one thing that I didn’t expect to come out of the essay — some actionable steps for a younger student to take to ultimately try to find a way to unite their extracurriculars and academic interest.

I’d say that was the most interesting thing that come out of it. There were a lot more predictable things — a lot of em dashes and the essay conclusion.

Tasha:

Interesting. Okay, well that’s fascinating. I really appreciate you pulling out the ways in which you thought it could be useful.

Can you go a little bit deeper or elaborate on the last few points you made regarding these kinds of conclusive statements and em dashes? I’m sure some of our listeners might be familiar with these tropes. What are some of these tropes that AI tends to use quite a bit, and why are they problematic?

Rachel:

As many have pointed out, AI is trained on how we actually write. Beyond the em dashes, one thing that became glaringly obvious was the sentence structure. It uses a very basic, repetitive structure: “I did this, this, and this.”

I’m looking at an essay right now that has a classic AI trope: “To me, it wasn’t just football anymore; it was biomechanics.” I’ve seen a lot of that recently — the “it wasn’t this, it was that” framing. The writing is “clean” in a way that might look good to someone who hasn’t seen a lot of AI generation. But once you’ve seen enough of it, you realize how predictable it is. Everything is just tied up with a neat little bow.

Tasha:

Yeah. I actually started noticing it in the inverse. I’d ask myself, “What are these sentences?” Then I realized these conclusive statements that are tied up with a bow. Sometimes it sounds nice, but when you ask yourself what it actually means, it doesn’t mean much. You have to pause and realize it’s just too neat.

Those are the internal thoughts I’ve been having as I encounter AI writing. So, I appreciate you breaking that down. What are some further takeaways from this experiment regarding college essay writing and AI?

Rachel:

It’s interesting to hear you talk about how “neat” the writing is. My heart goes out to students because, in a way, that is exactly what colleges are asking them to do. We ask students to make these big conclusions about lived experiences. In a way, that’s unfair because do we even know what these experiences really mean yet? By the end of the essay, we’re asking for reflection on “what does this mean to you? What does it mean to future you?”

I can see why using AI would be so alluring; it provides a sense of perfection that people feel they need to deliver. Often, students feel like the college essay isn’t the place to be their “true messy self,” even though it’s a personal statement.

I understand why students are drawn to tools that help wrap everything up and make sense of it all. I believe it’s more important than ever to take the time to write an authentic essay. If you write your own essay and it stands out because it’s clearly your voice — without AI assistance — it can really endear you to the admissions officers. If you can seize this moment to reject the temptation to use AI to make it “neat” or “tie it all up,” I think schools just want to see you be authentic.

I tell students all the time that it’s okay not to have all the answers. It’s okay to say, “I’m still figuring out what this experience meant.” AI has changed the role of the essay, but students benefit most from simply writing it themselves.

Tasha:

Wow. What I’m hearing is that for students who want to put themselves on the page and have an authentic college application, this surge of AI is almost an opportunity to stand out through their own genuine voices. That is an excellent point. I also wanted to highlight what you said about it being okay to not have all the answers.

I actually think about this all the time because the word “essay” in French means “to try.” An essay is literally meant not to be conclusive. While you should have a concluding paragraph, I personally like conclusions that leave something to the imagination or acknowledge a lack of full understanding. It’s okay to say, “This is how I’m going to continue to explore.” An essay is an exploration, not a “be-all, end-all.” After all, if you already had all the answers, why would you even need to go to college?

Rachel:

I love that. Yeah, absolutely. I had no idea about the word “essay” and its meaning, I mean, it’s really something to consider.

Tasha:

Absolutely. We’re going to wrap up, but first, let’s cover a few additional ways AI can be used as a tool in the writing process.

As Rachel outlined, AI can be helpful for brainstorming. While you wouldn’t use the actual essay it creates, it can help a student — especially an underclassman — think about what they could be doing.

It can also help students brainstorm potential topics. Again, how you write the prompt makes a big difference, but it can be very effective for the outlining process.

Rachel:

Yeah, I actually asked ChatGPT to ask me some questions. I told it I was starting my college essay and asked for some questions to help me brainstorm topics that colleges might be interested in. I thought the response was really helpful. One of the categories it suggested was “tension and growth,” and it even added in parentheses, “Colleges love this.”

That really made me laugh because it’s true. It asked things like: “What is something you’re still figuring out? What expectation of your own or someone else’s have you pushed back against? When have you changed your mind in a meaningful way?” These are great questions to get you started.

There are other places to find this, of course — like the storytelling podcast “The Moth,” which has a fun card game with similar prompts. But an AI-generated list is a helpful way to think about your values without explicitly saying, “I value X.” That could be an interesting way to get started.

I haven’t tried using AI to outline an essay. I’d be curious to see what that would deliver, though I worry it might start sounding like every other essay. If it tells you, “This is the right way to organize,” it will likely just give you a classic, five-paragraph, teacher-style essay. But I can imagine it being useful for organization once you’ve already landed on a topic and have some content written, asking, “How should I organize my application essay based on this topic?”

Tasha:

Yeah, I agree with that. I think less is more, right? You don’t want to put so much content in there because then it can be more prescriptive than you than we wanna recommend, right, because we don’t want it to sound or be AI generated. But when I was thinking about AI as a potentially useful tool for outlining, I was really thinking about the starting point.

So, for a potentially overwhelmed student who has a topic but doesn’t know how to organize their thoughts, outlining can be very helpful. However, it shouldn’t be used literally — as in, “you must do this, this, and this” with all your information. That’s one of our big takeaways: AI can be a helpful jumping-off point, but it isn’t a prescriptive resource.

Before we wrap up, I want to conclude without a “neat bow,” because this continues to be an ambiguous and non-definitive topic. To leave off, what are some definite AI “don’ts” in the college admissions process?

Rachel:

Hmm. I mean, I feel like we’ve covered some of the big ones. Don’t use AI to write your essay or concluding sentence. Don’t trust everything AI says.

Tasha:

Absolutely. Going back to checking your sources, working with your counselors and teachers, and viewing this as an opportunity to let your own voice shine on the page versus allowing AI to do it for you. Letting an AI take over ultimately creates a much less interesting, more cliché version of what you actually want to say.

Is there anything else that you want to leave listeners with — without tying it into a bow?

Rachel:

I think also remembering that there are people around you who know you and can help make suggestions that work specifically for you. When it comes to who you are as a person and finding a school where you fit, that recommendation should come from a person rather than an AI.

Similarly, if you want to generate topic ideas, ask the people in your life: “What do you think is interesting about me?” or “What is a story I’ve told you that made you laugh or that you found really interesting?” Asking the people around you to reflect back on who they think you are is invaluable. While that has nothing to do with AI and everything to do with the people around you, I think counting on your close circle and your community as a resource is just as important.

Tasha:

Ultimately, this shouldn’t be a solitary process. The story should come from you, but you should pull on your human resources to inform the story you’re telling on the page for your college admissions essay and your application in general.

One of my biggest takeaways is that in college admissions — as in so many other aspects of life — we don’t want to become isolated and only have conversations with AI. We want to continue collaborating, having real conversations with other humans, and getting advice from people who know us well. So, I think that’s a really great way to end things.

Rachel:

Yeah. Great.

Tasha:

Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Rachel.

Rachel:

Yeah, this was great. I loved having this conversation. Thanks, Tasha.

Tasha:

And that just about wraps up this episode of the Just Admit It! podcast. We will be continuing with semester 12 throughout the spring. If you have any suggestions about what we should be covering, please email us at [email protected]. In the meantime, you can catch up on all our previous episodes by visiting our podcast page.

And be sure to bookmark our KnowledgeBase for additional help with navigating the complex and competitive admissions process. From IvyWise, I’m your host, Tasha, and this has been Just Admit It! See you next time.

Editor’s Note: This transcript has been cleaned up and edited for clarity and readability.