What college students need to know about AI applications
By William Muthama, December 2, 2025Students applying to college know they cannot, or at least should not, use AI chatbots to write their essays and personal statements. So it might come as a surprise that some schools are now using artificial intelligence to read them.
AI tools are now being incorporated into how student applications are screened and analysed, admissions directors say. It can be a delicate topic, and not all colleges are eager to talk about it, but higher education is among the many industries where artificial intelligence is rapidly taking on tasks once reserved for humans.
In some cases, schools are quietly slipping AI into their evaluation process, experts say. Others are touting the technology’s potential to speed up their review of applications, cut processing times and even perform some tasks better than humans.
“Humans get tired; some days are better than others. The AI does not get tired. It doesn’t get grumpy. It doesn’t have a bad day. The AI is consistent,” says Juan Espinoza, vice provost for enrollment management at Virginia Tech.
This fall, Virginia Tech is debuting an AI-powered essay reader. The college expects it will be able to inform students of admissions decisions a month sooner than usual, in late January, because of the tool’s help in sorting tens of thousands of applications.
Colleges stress they are not relying on AI to make admissions decisions, using it primarily to review transcripts and eliminate data-entry tasks. But artificial intelligence is also playing a role in evaluating students.
Some highly selective schools are adopting AI tools to vet the increasingly curated application packages that some students develop with the help of high-priced admissions consultants.
The California Institute of Technology is launching an AI tool this fall to look for “authenticity” in students who submit research projects with their applications, admissions director Ashley Pallie said. Students upload their research to an AI chatbot that interviews them about it on video, which is then reviewed by Caltech faculty.
“It’s a gauge of authenticity. Can you claim this research intellectually? Is there a level of joy around your project? That passion is important to us,” Pallie said.
The prevalence of AI usage is difficult to gauge because it is such a new trend, said Ruby Bhattacharya, chair of the admission practices committee at the National Association for College Admission Counselling. NACAC updated its ethics guide this fall to add a section on artificial intelligence. It urges colleges to ensure the way they use it “aligns with our shared values of transparency, integrity, fairness and respect for student dignity.”
Blowback over AI
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faced a barrage of negative feedback from applicants, parents and students after its student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, reported in January that the school was using AI to evaluate the grammar and writing style of applicants’ essays.
The university declined to comment for this article and referred to its admissions website, which it updated after the criticism.
“UNC uses AI programs to provide data points about students’ common application essay and their school transcripts,” the website says. Every application “is evaluated comprehensively by extensively trained human application evaluators.”
At Virginia Tech, Espinoza said he has been contacted by several colleges that are interested in the new technology but wary of backlash. “The feedback from a lot of colleagues is, ‘You roll this out, we’re watching you, and we’ll see how everyone’s reacting,’” he said.
He stressed that the AI reader that his school spent three years developing is being used only to confirm human readers’ essay scores.
Until this fall, each of the four short-answer essays Virginia Tech applicants submit was read and scored by two people. Under the new system, one of those readers is the AI model, which has been trained on past applicant essays and the rubric for scoring, Espinoza said.
A second person will step in if the AI and human reader disagree by more than two points on a 12-point scoring scale.