Students considering using ChatGPT to write their college admissions essays should reconsider: AI tools tend to produce overly generic personal stories, even when asked to reflect specific races or genders.
Cornell Study Reveals AI-Generated College Essays Lack Authenticity and Individuality
Researchers at Cornell’s Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science analyzed 30,000 human-written college application essays and compared them to essays generated by eight popular large language models (LLMs), including tools like ChatGPT. Even when prompts included details such as the applicant’s race, gender, and geographic location, the AI-generated essays came out strikingly similar to each other and were easily distinguishable from authentic human writing.
“The admissions essay is a chance for students to show who they are beyond the numbers and forms,” said Rene Kizilcec, associate professor of information science at Cornell Bowers and senior author of the study. “AI tools like ChatGPT can be helpful for giving writing feedback, especially for students who struggle with writing. But using them to produce an entire draft typically results in a bland, impersonal essay that doesn’t reflect a real applicant’s voice.”
The researchers noted that their findings highlight the challenge of tailoring a large language model’s writing style, making these tools unsuitable for high-stakes writing tasks.
Upcoming Presentation Highlights Challenges of AI in College Admissions Essays
Ph.D. student in information science Jinsook Lee will lead the presentation of the paper, “Poor Alignment and Steerability of Large Language Models: Evidence from College Admission Essays,” on October 10 at the 2025 Conference on Language Modeling in Montreal.
College admissions essays give students a chance to highlight their individuality, background, and personal experiences.
“You want your writing to reflect your authentic self—and no one else,” said co-author AJ Alvero, assistant research professor of information science and sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Center for Data Science for Enterprise and Society. “By relying on AI tools, students may unintentionally hurt their own chances.”
It’s unclear how many high school students are currently using AI for their college applications, but a report from the education research group foundry10 estimates that around 30% are relying on these tools to write their essays.
Study Reveals AI Essays Rely on Formulaic Responses Rather Than Genuine Storytelling
To explore this trend, researchers analyzed college admissions essays written in the three years leading up to ChatGPT’s release in November 2022. They compared each human-written essay to responses generated by eight large language models (LLMs)—created by OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, and Mistral—using the same essay prompts. In a second round, researchers asked the LLMs to write essays incorporating specific characteristics—such as an Asian woman from Salinas, California, whose parents both hold college degrees—to match the original writer’s profile.
The study found that instead of crafting compelling personal stories, the AI-generated essays often repeated keywords from the prompt and presented personal information in a rigid, formulaic style.
For instance, ChatGPT produced the following response: “Growing up in Lexington, South Carolina, with my Asian heritage, I often felt like a bridge between two cultures. My parents, both college graduates, emphasized the importance of education and hard work.”
AI’s Attempts to Personalize Essays Often Result in Less Authentic Writing
Interestingly, the researchers observed that when the model mimicked a specific individual, it often produced output that sounded even less human.
In another example, when asked to respond to a prompt about a background, identity, or interest essential to the applicant’s story, ChatGPT began with: “When I was eight years old, I was given a small, deconstructed robot kit for my birthday. It was a simple contraption, with wires, motors and a basic circuit board. Yet, for me, it was the beginning of a journey into the world of engineering that has shaped my identity and future aspirations.”
However, when ChatGPT was given more detailed personal background information, it produced an essay that began: “Growing up in Rabat, Morocco, I have always been acutely aware of the intricate tapestry of my heritage. As a biracial individual with a Black mother and a white father, my identity has been a powerful lens through which I view the world and an integral part of my journey.”
Detecting AI Essays and Advice for Authentic College Application Writing
The researchers also found it surprisingly easy to distinguish AI-generated essays. When they trained a model to tell the difference between essays written by humans and those written by large language models, it achieved nearly perfect accuracy. This suggests that if colleges and universities are actively checking, they can likely detect AI-generated content in applications.
Policies on AI use in college applications vary by school, but lead author Jinsook Lee recommends that students develop their own ideas and write the first draft themselves. If AI tools are permitted, she suggests using them only for editing or polishing—not for creating the entire essay.
Applying to college can be stressful, but Lee recalls her own experience with essay writing in a positive light. “It gave me a valuable chance to reflect on my life and background,” she said. “I believe it was the first time I truly engaged in self-reflection.”
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