At D24’s college, you don’t declare your major until 2nd semester of sophomore year for this very reason. Everybody applies with a specific major, of course, but enrolled students actually have an ‘undeclared’/‘undecided’ major until 2nd semester of sophomore year.
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Interesting they said that it’s ok for instate students, according to their website there is no transfer, period. (At least in Grainger - there are other CS courses in A&S)
First-year students admitted to the following computer science majors in The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois in the fall of 2022 and thereafter are direct admit only and closed to on-campus transfer (ICT/IDT):
- B.S. Computer Science
- B.S. CS + Physics
- B.S. CS + Bioengineering
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The YCBK interview was some time last academic year, so I’d go based off of whatever the college’s website says currently.
My D24 is in engineering and had no real ECs that would say engineering. She did orchestra, band, theater for costumes, and a lot of sewing projects. She is even doing a minor in studio art. But she likes her engineering classes so far for the most part. It wouldn’t surprise me if she changes, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she sticks with it either.
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It’s funny how similar our kids are – I’ve already mentioned that mine is a total band, theatre, costumes, sewing and art kid, lol. She just walked in with a pile of curtains from Goodwill. Curtains! She plans on sewing her Halloween costume, and she didn’t want to spend money on pricier fabric at a fabric store. 
I’ve often wondered if she’d want to explore engineering majors. But then, she didn’t care for architecture in high school because it was too detailed, and she got bogged down with all the precise specifications – so maybe not!
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D26 had interview today w/a college. That went well. Kid also said that her counselor told her that she (D26) is ahead of the game and is pretty much the only one right now done with all of her essays…everybody else’s are still in various states of needing more work.
College rep in the interview told D26 that they need to receive official transcript from her high school by 11/1. D26 told me that counselor already has it on the list and counselor is planning on sending it all on time well before the deadline. D24 had this counselor, also, 2 yr ago when she was applying to college…counselor was totally on the ball. We’re super grateful for that.
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So much this! In our area the occupations that kids are exposed to are so very limited. If I look at my kids’ high school friends’ parents occupations, they are: engineer, process operator, nurse, nurse practitioner, teacher, lawyer, IT, contractor, realtor. That’s it, that’s all the examples see.
In other news, S26 is pushing it to the limit. We just finished the brag sheet for the counselor. Still no common app essay draft. But rec letter is in the works. I am not convinced he will make the 11/1 EA deadline 
He did submit the LLC application questions for his safety. But he had nobody proofreading them. I could totally see him submitting other essays and supplementals without anybody else looking at them too 
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My D26 has started her interviews as well. One thing I didn’t expect, one school (which I won’t name), the interview turned her off. One of the questions right off the bat she found weak, and not one that really fosters conversation and getting to know the prospective student. It was an interview with a student that she described as very rigid and not personal.
Today she said, while she doesn’t ascribe any judgment to the student, she does judge the school based on the interview. More specifically, she thought the interview questions were clearly given to the student as a list to go through and she didn’t think they were great questions.
The school was already outside her top 5 choices, but I suspect it has fallen way down the list after the interview. I was not expecting the interviews to impact D26’s views of any of the schools negatively.
She had a great one today that was positive reflection of the school according to her.
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My D was excited to apply to Georgia Tech until she read their policy on using AI in the process of writing college essays (basically, they seem to allow or even encourage this use). Now she’s having second thoughts about applying there. (She really does not like to see AI used in school work or essay writing at all.)
From the application review page
AI tools can be powerful and valuable in the application process when used thoughtfully. We believe there is a place for them in helping you generate ideas, but your ultimate submission should be your own. As with all other sources, you should not copy and paste content you did not create directly into your application. Instead, if you choose to utilize AI-based assistance while working on your writing submissions for Georgia Tech, we encourage you to take the same approach you would when collaborating with people. Use it to brainstorm, edit, and refine your ideas. AI can also be a useful tool as you consider how to construct your resume in the Activities portion of the Common Application. We think AI could be a helpful collaborator, particularly when you do not have access to other assistance to help you complete your application.
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Honestly, I think that colleges (and even high schools) are going to have to adapt to AI, for better or worse, because it’s not going away. I wouldn’t be automatically turned off by a school that was recognizing that reality. My middle child (college senior) has a public policy class this year that is incorporating AI. Basically, they had to prompt AI to write a public policy position – and then they needed to revise and critique it. He said it was actually a pretty fun assignment.
Edited to add – Not sure I like the idea of AI being a “collaborator” in the college application process – but, as they point out, it’s not much different than parents hiring essay coaches, etc.
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I can understand if your daughter is just not a fan – and yes, I totally agree that essays should be the student’s own work, always – but I think the statement you posted from GT is realistic. I think it’s saying that if the student didn’t have a parent or anyone else to bounce ideas off of, then AI can help with that.
I suspect shunning AI altogether is going to eventually be like shunning cell phones – at some point it’s just not going to be possible.
Penn and Rice both now have dedicated AI majors.
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That’s what I told D, but she said that her concern is that she doesn’t want to go to a school where other students are heavy AI users. She hates how much she sees AI being used by other HS students at her school, and was shocked by seeing students in her highly selective summer program routinely using AI to outsource thinking and even make up research results 
Studying AI and working on AI systems is different from using it on your college essays, though.
Full disclosure, AI was my professional field before I retired (my grad school work was in the AI lab at MIT) and my husband works in AI…
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Yeah, that policy would have turned off my kid, too.
This.
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Our high school makes students use Turnitin for most essays and papers, and now it supposedly detects AI use in addition to plagiarism. So my D26 is too paranoid to use it even for research or ideas lest she be accused of cheating.
Yeah, that’s fair. I still think GT is being realistic – I don’t think an applicant is going to read that and think, “HEY maybe I can use AI!” I think students who intend to use it will do so even without this kind of “permission” from the school.
It’ll be interesting to see if the schools start running all college essays through some kind of program to detect AI use – or maybe they already do that?
Well, my D26 applied to Georgia Tech, and she’s not a heavy AI user. 
I do understand the concern about our kids’ generation losing reasoning skills and critical thinking capabilities if they allow AI to do their work – that NY Times article was chilling.
But I guess I’m just not having the same visceral reaction to GT’s statement that your D is. (And I’m fairly sure that my kid didn’t even see it, lol.)
My daughter made 2 homecoming dresses from curtains! She will also buy super discounted clothes in large sizes to salvage the material and turn it into something else. They are very similar kids!
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This makes perfect sense to me. That your D has had a front row seat to high schoolers abusing AI and therefore had a visceral reaction to a school that is supporting its use for essays. While I agree with you that Georgia Tech’s statement seems a reasonable and realistic statement on a fair usage, I get why your daughter balked at it when plenty of colleges still do not want it used at all for essays.
I could imagine another student being impressed by how on top of things Georgia Tech is to recognize the pros and risks of the AI issue and set clear parameters for its expectations regarding essays.
It will be interesting to see how colleges’ use of the essay evolves in the coming years as AI becomes more ubiquitous. I suspect it will quickly get to the point where colleges feel less confident that the essays are the students own work, and will use them more purely to get insights about the student as opposed to whatever weight they now ascribe to them as an indicator of a kid’s ability to write or tell a story.
Schools are going to have to adapt in a lot of ways to the reality that students will be using AI in unproductive ways if they can get away with it.
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This is an interesting analogy at this moment in time when more and more schools are banning cell phones because of their negative impact on education and when society has also recently had an awakening about the harms to teens of social media. Only time will tell what level of embrace of AI will ultimately be helpful vs harmful and what the true consequences of society’s inevitable shift to AI everywhere will be.
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However, that is probably a foreshadowing to what she will see at college, regardless of what their essay policy is. All it tells me is that AI usage is spread across all levels of academics, including students aiming at top schools.
C26 is anti AI from an environmental perspective. But they’re not going to be able to shun it forever.
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