Every word you said, but especially the fact that AI isn’t going to be able to help you be more “yourself” and showcase what makes you, you.
At best, I think using any AI program is going to probably write an essay at best not actively harmful - giving basically no benefit at all.
Worst case scenario, it reads like a generic “AI assisted essay” that makes the admission officer wonder why you chose not to write your own essays and dings you for it aka is actively harmful.
It is interesting to me because even as a normal human helper, I have found it very challenging. With, say, work projects, we don’t really care about personal voice and such, we are just trying to put out accurate, properly-formatted, and persuasive writing. So we all pretty aggressively edit and suggest.
But in this context, I feel like I have to be very cautious about what I suggest, to make sure these truly stay S24’s essays, and obviously so. Just not something I am normally concerned about, and I find it very limiting (which is fine, of course, I am not in fact the one applying for college).
Of course eventually maybe AI editors will be able to do that sort of nuance (at which point I hope to be retired, because I am not sure what else I will have left to contribute of economic value). But for now, I am pretty comfortable with the idea these tools could easily do a lot more harm than good if not used similarly carefully, within sharp limits.
I help students with essay revisions and after reading dozens of essays from different students, I can say with some authority - they all have their ‘own’ voice. And the biggest part of my role (imo) is making sure I’m not suggesting anything that changes that voice. My job is to make the writer’s self as clear as possible.
On a bit of a tangent…the two biggest issue I’ve seen with essays are Basic Organization and Wrong Topic.
The organization part is the best part of being a reader because you can see the great bones that just need slight re-arrangement. It doesn’t affect voice. Easiest helpful edits in the world, imo.
Wrong topic is tricky because usually it is a ‘good’ topic just not right for a college application essay. I think it is wonderful to read about someone’s love and admiration for their parent or grandparent…but unless the parent/grandparent are applying to college, I’m not sure how singing their praises is going to help their child/grandchild get accepted to college. You don’t have that much space in an application - use all of it to talk about you!
Back to AI…it is beyond clear to me when students are relying too much on grammarly in their writing. I really wish students were taught more clearly that synonyms often don’t mean exactly the same thing. The longer words offered by grammarly often convey nuance that might not be appropriate to the idea being expressed. If I can see that, I am sure admission officers who read way more essays also know when its been overused/over relied upon.
That’s a great framing. I am very sure most of my useful suggestions have fallen in the Basic Organization category. S24, as is appropriate, is really relying on his college counselors for the Wrong Topic side of things.
I guess my other big “contribution” is just as a sounding board. S24 sometimes isn’t sure how to conclude an essay, for example. I know it is generally a good idea to conclude by circling back to the prompt, and usually I know how I would do it–but that’s not going to be the right answer because it is my answer, not his. So, I will suggest S24 and I actually talk a bit, but he actually has to decide what really makes sense to him and then put it in his own words.
And by this point I assume he is pretty sick of asking me if something is a good idea and me responding something like it is a good idea if that is what he thinks is an honest answer to the prompt. But again, I don’t really put myself into the Wrong Topic area.
D24 got into Southwestern Univ!
There seemed to be a lot of positive momentum on this week’s RD apps as of Saturday, so of course S24 took that as a signal to stick it in neutral and coast for a couple days.
Now school restarts tomorrow, and he leaves Friday morning for an overnight sports tournament.
So today SHOULD be a big day. We shall see.
@NiceUnparticularMan - maybe that’s it? My daughter submitted her Vassar app a while ago but now would like to do the Your Space piece - hopefully she can still submit it.
I suspect this is it. My kid submitted the Vassar app late last week and did not get the email. It probably went out only to students who had an app in progress but not submitted. Which would also explain why they didn’t announce it on social media—the goal wasn’t to drum up wholly new applications but to give those who were already working on one a little more time to submit.
Of course he did . . . . We are down to 4 left here with dates of 1/5, 1/10 and 1/15. I am cautiously optimistic he’ll get them done.
My S24 submitted his final 2 applications over the weekend. Honestly I feel like they were not his best work, which is unfortunate because they are possibly the 2 most competitive schools he is applying to and also in many ways the school I think would be his best fit. (On the other hand, they are also likely to be the 2 most expensive schools, so maybe not terrible if he doesn’t get in…)
Vassar Admissions strikes me as pretty nice, and given that the RD deadline (as extended) is still in the future, I can’t see why they would have a problem getting it by that deadline.
My guess is you can just use the supplemental materials function in the portal, but you could always email them to ask.
Happy New Year, y’all! C24 worked their butt off all break, but they have finished all of their applications! I think getting bad news before Christmas really lit a fire under them, because suddenly they were much more open to a variety of schools and much more driven in getting the apps done. Now they just have auditions to prepare for, and then it’s a waiting game.
@coastal2024, I’m so glad nobody got hurt and that your garage is easily fixable. Your poor kid, though – that must have been so scary for her!
S24 still has 8 to submit–2 on 1/3, 1/4, 2 on 1/5, 1/7, and 2 on 1/15.
I am nonetheless also cautiously optimistic he will get them all submitted. I am also uncautiously pessimistic about the affect the manner in which he does that will have on my mental state . . . .
D24 is finished…but please Duke stop sending the puppy emails as she is finding it hard to resist just doing one more……
I hear you. I will say that S24 has been able to re-purpose a few essays which has made the process faster. Obviously, he has personalized them to the new school(s) but at a certain point the essay questions start to sound the same so . . .
We got the Vassar email and D has never once expressed an interest in applying. We just got it from the College Board email service, because I had not yet unsubscribed from Vassar emails yet.
So I think they actually were trying to drum up more applications or encourage people to toss one in at the end.
MAMomto4–I felt like that about one of D24’s final applications to a reach school. But now that a few days have passed, I honestly feel like the desires of each school and the applicant pool are so unpredictable that there is no way to tell which is a more persuasive application for any of them! 
My S24 is also experiencing this, and actually I think this is a big part of the current dynamic.
If it was me, my response would be, “Great, now I can bang these all out quickly in one solid afternoon, and then get to making cocktails with some of my holiday gifts.”
S24’s response appears to be something more like, “Great, now I can cut and paste a bunch of prior essays into various working Google docs, or just have a notion of doing so, and then do the actual work of modifying and finalizing those essays at the last possible minute, while my Dad is holding off on the cocktails in case I need something from him.”
That might be SLIGHTLY uncharitable, but still.
Don’t hold off on the cocktails! I wish I could down a few before leaving in 20 mins to get two dental crowns done. I’m here on CC madly reading every thread to distract myself.
Don’t hold off on the cocktails - it makes the waiting far more pleasurable.