My social media feeds have been all atwitter for some time about how the artificial intelligence (AI) bot ChatGPT could affect college admissions essays. Concern abounds that applicants will begin to use ChatGPT to generate admission essays that respond to college application prompts.
In a column for Inside Higher Education, Jim Jump, a seasoned counselor to high school seniors applying to college, recounted his experience being asked by Forbes magazine to weigh in on an essay generated by ChatGPT and definitively determine whether or not it was written by a person.
“I probably couldn’t detect the AI authorship,” Jump wrote, but he pointed out that he “wouldn’t label the essays as convincing.” They were cliched and did not respond to the prompt convincingly. “They also didn’t sound like an essay a teenager would write, but rather an essay a teenager might write with major assistance and editing by an adult.”
Shortly after I read Jump’s column, I saw a post on LinkedIn that mentioned embracing AI is crucial for aspiring students and job seekers. The poster pointed out how ChatGPT could write your admission essay for you, adding that high-priced admissions consultants who are hired to assist students with all aspects of their college admission process, including the essay, “are going to face tough days soon.”
Why is there so much fuss about prospective students using ChatGPT or similar AI tools to write their essays for them when many students with means have hired admissions consultants to “assist” them with their college application essays for years?
It is likely no easier to detect whether an admissions consultant wrote an essay for a student than it would be to determine whether ChatGPT did. In fact, as the technology evolves, it might become easier to detect ChatGPT’s work than the work of a seasoned admissions counselor.
An ethical admissions counselor, of course, should never write an application essay for a client. But if an application instructs applicants that they should not have someone else write or edit their essay for them, the line between “edit” and “coach” might be blurry. (Summon the angry letters from seasoned admissions consultants.)
If coaching involves giving a prospective student general advice, that seems fair. Such advice might be to make sure to actually answer the prompt, to make sure they try to include personal examples that could only come from them, to proofread their work. You know, basic stuff any high school senior should have learned in school but may not have taken to heart at the time.
The real question college admissions committees should be asking is whether they are explicit in their instructions that an applicant’s work should be their own. Having them sign a statement that indicates they did not rely on AI bots nor any one person to write, rewrite or heavily edit their work doesn’t guarantee they won’t, but it becomes a first test of a prospective student’s integrity. If they know that violating their agreement risks losing admission, that might give them pause. But the real reason students should do their own work is because it might give the admissions committee a sense of the person behind the essay … and because it’s the right thing to do.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of "The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice," is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.
Follow him on Twitter @jseglin
No comments:
Post a Comment