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Should I use AI to write my college entrance essay?

University of Rochester’s Robert Alexander says AI has the potential to stifle a student’s ‘authentic voice.’

Apr 24, 2025

2 min

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence tools such as generative pre-trained transformers, or GPTs, high school students may be tempted to use the tools to perfect their college applications, particularly their entrance essay.

Robert Alexander, a vice provost and the dean of enrollment management at the University of Rochester, cautions prospective college students from relying too heavily on AI tools in their applications.

“The sentiment among college admissions professionals is that while AI tools may be helpful in generating essay topics and refining or editing students’ writing, we discourage their use to compose application essays or short answers because AI stifles an applicant’s authentic voice,” Alexander says.

That personal voice becomes paramount when admissions officers are sifting through applications and considering how each student will contribute to the campus community and fit into the incoming class.

“No college or university is trying to admit perfectly identical automaton students,” Alexander says. “At the University of Rochester, for instance, we’re not looking for 1,300 perfect students. We’re trying to craft the perfect class of 1,300 very different and highly-imperfect, but great-fit students.”

The goal, he says, is to invite great students, inclusive of their imperfections, and guide them on a transformative journey through their next four years.

“Colleges want students to come in with a growth mindset and potential,” Alexander says. “So, if students think they can use AI to help make their application ‘perfect,’ I think they’re chasing the wrong brass ring.”

Alexander is an expert in undergraduate admissions and enrollment management who speaks on the subjects to national audiences and whose work has been published in national publications. Click his profile to reach him.

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Robert Alexander

Vice Provost & University Dean for Enrollment Management

Alexander is an expert in undergraduate admissions, enrollment management, and curricular design.

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Put down the protest signs already. Retire the “Save Pluto” pins. Step away from the planetary outrage. Seriously. So says University of Rochester astrophysicist Adam Frank in his latest column in Forbes. Frank explains that the real story behind Pluto being stripped of its planetary status in 2006 isn’t about what Pluto lost, but what scientists found. Pluto made news recently when NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman replied to a Florida girl’s handwritten plea to restore Pluto’s designation as a planet, saying he supported such a move. Frank has one word for Isaacman: Stop! “Now Isaacman seems like a good guy and I sure don’t want to make little kids cry,” Frank writes. “Still, there’s an amazing science reason why Pluto got kicked out of the planet club.” For decades, Frank explains, we thought the solar system ended with the nine familiar planets, with Pluto being the most distant. But beyond Neptune lies the Kuiper Belt, a vast expanse filled with icy remnants from the birth of the solar system. These objects are essentially the leftover building blocks of planets. Pluto, it turns out, is one of them. That matters because this cosmic debris holds crucial clues about how planets form. Studying Pluto and its neighbors helps scientists understand the origins of Earth and the potential for life elsewhere in the universe. So, Pluto isn’t an outcast; it’s a key witness to our cosmic history. It belongs to a newly understood class of worlds that are central to modern astronomy. Rather than mourn Pluto’s status and push for restoring its former title, Frank suggests we celebrate its reclassification as the moment astronomers realized the solar system is far richer than they had ever imagined. If you’re a journalist looking for an expert to talk about Pluto — or planets and worlds formerly known as planets — Frank is your scholar. He is a frequent contributor to the likes of CNN, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and MSNBC, and can help your audience make sense of our vast universe.

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