Artificial intelligence has infiltrated our lives in countless ways, so it’s no surprise that AI is playing an increasing role in college admissions.
Your clients need to understand the best ways to utilize this valuable tool during their college search and avoid the ways AI can be misused.
Most of the AI attention in the college space revolves around cheating. Some teenagers are using AI to write their college essays. However, limiting AI to legitimate or unethical essay help will deprive students of valuable ways to utilize the tool.
Whether you prefer ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or another option, AI can be a valuable tool to research colleges, navigate deadlines and enhance a student’s and parents’ thought processes.
Here are eight things that you should know about AI and the journey to college:
1. AI can help families cut through higher-ed jargon and understand such basics as financial aid and merit awards, as well as terms like Student Aid Index and Expected Family Contribution. AI can also explain how the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and CSS Profile work. Parents who need to complete one or both aid applications can turn to AI if they are having difficulties with them.
2. Financial advisors can also turn to AI when they need to educate themselves about college concepts and issues. AI can be especially helpful for advisors who must field a variety of client questions regarding 529 plans. For instance, if a family asks you what expenses are treated as qualified distributions under federal law and the relevant state law, you can generate the answer in seconds.
3. There are a lot of potentially tricky decisions that families must make, and AI can help with that. In addition to explaining the difference, for instance, between applying Early Action and Early Decision as well as Early Decision II, AI can guide the thought process on which of these application options will work for a family.
Here is another decision that AI can assist a family with. It can weigh in when a student is contemplating whether to apply to a test-optional school and whether to submit test scores or not.
4. AI can also aid families in developing a better sense of whether a student would flourish at a particular institution or a certain type of institution. Here, for instance, are the kinds of queries you can ask:
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What kind of students tend to thrive at Washington University in St. Louis?
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What is the campus culture like at the University of Chicago?
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What are the requirements to qualify for the honors college at Arizona State University?
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What universities have a high percentage of sororities and fraternities, and what schools have zero Greek life?
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What are some of the most conservative campuses in the country, and which are the most liberal?
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What large state universities have enough available housing for undergrads to live on campus for four years?
5. With AI, you can also cast a net for schools that offer strong academic programs and services that are especially important to the student.
Use AI to search for schools with highly regarded academic majors in a specific field and then ask AI to compare the schools that make the cut. For instance, you could ask about strong engineering programs in a specific region, such as the Pacific Northwest or the Mid-Atlantic states. Once you have some names, ask AI for side-by-side comparisons.
Because internships can boost the chances of employment after graduation, I asked, as an example, for the names of schools where a high percentage of undergraduates obtain at least one internship. AI provided a list of 15 schools that met that criteria, including Northeastern, Drexel, University of Cincinnati, Georgia Tech, Purdue, Kettering and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
6. You can also enlist your preferred AI assistant to build timelines and to-do lists for applications. Use AI to generate a list of questions to ask during a campus visit or information session.
7. As I mentioned earlier, most of the focus on AI is on using it to write college essays. Allowing AI to compose an essay is unethical, and it will likely backfire. At the very least, likely, the essay will just be darn right boring and devoid of the student’s own voice.
What can work is brainstorming with AI regarding essay topics. You can also share a draft with AI and request feedback on clarity and tone.
8. Keep in mind that with any AI queries, the more specifics you can share about what you want, the better the results.
Numerous ways exist to use AI for college research. And if you run out of ideas, you can ask AI for more.
