Updated: Wednesday, May 28, 2025
By Rachel, IvyWise College Admissions Counselor
I recently asked ChatGPT to generate a 650-word college essay based on a hypothetical high school flag football captain with a budding interest in kinesiology. The result? It was predictably contrived and full of cliches.
The Anatomy of a Play
I remember the exact moment I became obsessed—not just with flag football, but with how our bodies move. We were down by six, thirty seconds on the clock, no timeouts. As captain, I called a motion slant play we’d practiced a hundred times. I sprinted left, pivoted, then cut right on a dime. I felt my hamstrings tighten, my quads fire, and my feet dig into the turf like cleats into memory. I caught the ball, dodged the safety, and dove into the endzone.
Touchdown.
Later that night, as I replayed the game in my head for the tenth time, I wasn’t just thinking about the win. I was thinking about my stride length. The angle of my knee at push-off. The way I caught the ball mid-air while shifting my center of gravity. I started wondering why my teammate Eric always pulled his hamstring and why my vertical improved so much this season. It wasn’t just football anymore—it was biomechanics.
That was when I started researching kinesiology. I learned that the way I moved on the field could be explained—optimized, even—with science. I watched YouTube videos on muscle activation, spent hours learning about fast-twitch vs. slow-twitch muscle fibers, and found myself pausing during practices to ask our coach about different warm-up routines and what muscles they targeted.
Eventually, I started designing our pre-game stretches. Not the boring toe-touching stuff, but dynamic warm-ups I created based on what I was reading: high knees, A-skips, lateral lunges. I paid attention to how our bodies felt after different drills and kept notes on who performed better after specific warm-ups. I wasn’t trying to be the team trainer—I was just curious. But that curiosity changed the way I played, and how I led.
As captain, I’m responsible for more than just making plays. I make sure everyone’s locked in—mentally and physically. When our quarterback sprained his ankle, I sat with him and we looked up rehab exercises together. When our fastest runner started feeling shin splints, I encouraged him to take rest days and helped adjust his form. These aren’t things that show up in the score—but they mattered to me. Because flag football isn’t just a sport I love. It’s a lens through which I’ve started to understand the human body, teamwork, and responsibility.
I’m still learning. I don’t have a perfect understanding of kinesiology yet, and I can’t always explain why a certain stretch feels better or why some players recover faster than others. But I know I want to find out. That curiosity is what drives me—on the field and off it.
Next year, I hope to major in kinesiology or exercise science. I want to study biomechanics and injury prevention, maybe even physical therapy. I want to help athletes—at any level—move better, stay healthy, and unlock their potential. I think about the teammates I’ve played alongside, and how many of them dropped out mid-season due to injury or burnout. I want to be someone who understands that from both sides: the competitive athlete and the curious student.
Flag football has taught me a lot about leadership, resilience, and game-day pressure. But more than anything, it’s opened a door. What started as a game has become something much bigger: the beginning of a lifelong fascination with movement, recovery, and performance.
The touchdown was great. But understanding how I got there—that’s what keeps me coming back.
This essay revealed the beginning of a strong personal narrative — just not one that AI could fully deliver. It is a “personal” narrative, after all. The insight we can share about our experiences and goals is unique. However, let’s look at what ChatGPT produced and what we can take away from it.
The college application essay generated was about a game-winning play that motivated the student to become fascinated with biomechanics related to athletic performance. The fictional student’s curiosity led them to research training techniques, create better warm-ups for their team, and support injured teammates.
While I don’t think “The Anatomy of a Play,” as ChatGPT called it, was a good college admissions essay, I do think a student-athlete interested in kinesiology could, especially in the position of captain, watch YouTube videos on muscle activation and work with their coach to learn more about what muscle groups are targeted in different warm-up routines with the goal of designing some dynamic warm-ups and pre-game stretches.
We know this essay can’t be submitted with an application. Not only does it miss the mark in several ways, but it also violates academic integrity. Besides, admissions officers can often identify AI-generated writing. However, this essay can serve as a tool for reflection, as well as future planning, depending on where you are in the college admissions process.
For a high school junior, for example, this essay provides actionable steps to strengthen the relationship between future goals (studying kinesiology) and current activities (flag football). After implementing some ideas during team conditioning, they could write their own essay about the topic. Taking the idea and making it your own ensures that an admissions reader will get to know you and better understand who you are.
One thing this essay also attempts to do is make the case for the student’s fascination with understanding the “why.” It included lines like, “I wasn’t trying to be the team trainer—I was just curious,” and “I learned that the way I moved on the field could be explained—optimized, even—with science.”
No matter what college essay topic you choose, highlighting your curiosity and desire to learn always lands. Though college is many things, it is, at the end of the day, an institution of higher learning. If you can show admissions readers you want to explore topics that fascinate you, you’ll be on the right track.
When it comes time to write your college admissions essay, generative tools can be a helpful way to get started. Here’s how I suggest you use AI:
To ultimately create the kind of essay colleges want to see, it’s you — the applicant — who must do the reflective work. The best personal statements are about more than just what happened. They’re about what you noticed, how it impacted you, and what you tried next. This AI-generated essay reminds us that a clever metaphor or polished conclusion doesn’t deliver the introspection admissions readers are looking for. The only one who can do that is you.
Writing your college essay may seem like a daunting task, but you don’t have to do it alone. Here at IvyWise, every member of the counseling team has worked in college admissions and read thousands of applicant essays, so we know how to help you write a standout essay. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you with every facet of the college admissions process.
Watch Rachel attempt to spot the AI college essay in the video below.
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