Students today are worried about whether AI use is allowed in college admissions essays, whether schools use AI detectors, and if an application can be rejected over suspected AI content. As AI ...

In the high-stakes world of college admissions, there’s one lesson every hopeful applicant should learn early: sometimes, what you leave out of your essay matters more than what you put in. As Sophie ...

Parents, we’ve all seen it: Gen Z has practically turned vulnerability into an art form. Whether it’s a “get ready with me” video that turns into a therapy session or a TikTok confessional about ...

This story about generative AI was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

Writing a college admissions essay is a little bit like going through a job interview. The prompts sound roughly like this: Tell us about a situation or task you encountered, what you did and what the ...

Writing a college admissions essay is hard. But using AI could backfire badly. Credit: Ian Moore / Mashable Composite; Tero Vesalainen / iStock / Getty Every fall, high school students applying to ...

As someone who has spent more than two decades helping high school students navigate how to write personal essays for their college applications, I regularly advise them to answer prompts fully, stick ...

Ms. O’Rourke is the executive editor of The Yale Review and a professor of creative writing at Yale University. July 18, 2025 When I first told ChatGPT who I was, it sent a gushing reply: “Oh wow — it ...

Artificial intelligence chatbots may be able to write a quick essay, but a new study from MIT found that their use comes at a cognitive cost. A study published by the Massachusetts Institute of ...

In 2023, the University of Michigan Law School made headlines for its policy banning applicants from using generative AI to write their admissions essays. Now, two admissions cycles later, the law ...

Two years after the Supreme Court banned the use of race in college admissions decisions and in the wake of the Trump administration’s attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, colleges’ use of ...

The personal essay is an essential component of your application. How compelling it is — or isn't — can make or break your acceptance.