Do College Admissions Use an AI Detector tool?

If you make a purchase after clicking on links within this article, Lee Enterprises may earn affiliate commissions. The news and editorial departments had no role in the creation or display of this content.

With so many places using artificial intelligence these days, it’s no wonder more and more college campuses are starting to use an AI Detector tool in their classroom, but what about the admissions part of your college application? Do college admissions use an AI Detector tool when evaluating your application to their campus?

You can’t be sure, which is why this article takes the time to dive into this topic and share findings and opinions on the matter with you. Continue reading to learn more about how college admissions can use AI Detector tools during their evaluation process. 

Over 40% of college students admit to using some form of artificial intelligence in their coursework. With a number that high, you can only assume that these language models are also being used in the admission process, specifically with essays or answering difficult questions. 

GPT systems can easily answer the harder questions for you; all you have to do is insert the question and it can draft up the complete answer in minutes. This will leave the student to just copy and paste or type up the answer in the coursework section for their college work or within the admissions paperwork. 

Since colleges have had students self-proclaimed that they use AI language models to complete their coursework, more colleges have started to use AI Detector tools, but do they use them within the admissions department? 

The answer is yes, but the AI policies will vary from college to college. 

Often, admissions officers will use some sort of artificial intelligence to evaluate admissions paperwork to ensure there is a fair advantage from student to student. Colleges don’t want people cheating the system, so they must use up-to-date technology to evaluate the hundreds, if not thousands, of applications received yearly. 

There are a mixture of things admission officers will use to evaluate the application to attend their college: 

• AI software

• Human evaluation 

• AI Detector tools 

It’s best for students to evaluate the policies regarding the usage of artificial intelligence within the admissions department before submitting any application that utilizes this technology. 

Why do college admissions check for AI usage? 

Since there are hundreds of applications, and in some instances thousands of applications, to consider each year, the admissions department wants to make sure that there is a fair and reasonable expectation for each applicant. 

Not every applicant to the college can use or is aware of using AI tools for the admission process. This means that you must have some policies in place and maintain some level of integrity to ensure that each student is fairly evaluated based on their actual skillsets and experiences. 

There are other reasons why the admissions department at the college that you’ve applied to will use AI Detector tools, among other AI technology, during the evaluation process. As noted, one of the biggest reasons these college admissions departments cite using AI detector tools and upgrading their AI policies each year is to prevent unfair advantages. 

Sometimes, a tech-savvy student can use AI tools to write the best essays, whereas a student who doesn’t have the best tech skills or access to these AI tools may not be able to write a perfect essay. Face it: writing essays is a nightmare for most people. An AI content creator can write an essay for your college admissions paperwork within seconds, which could potentially give you the upper hand over someone else who wrote their essay from scratch. 

This is something that the college admissions officers are aware of so they are favorable to using AI Detector tools to evaluate the essay text before reading through it to determine if it makes the cut for the student being admitted into the college or not. 

Another reason why some college admissions use an AI Detector tool is to maintain academic integrity. This is something that most colleges push: integrity! They want their students to be authentic and true to themselves and others. This means that students shouldn’t use AI tools to do their work for them or to complete admissions essays for them.

Many campuses take pride in having one of their six fundamental values being integrity. This is another reason why college admissions use an AI Detector tool. This evaluation will keep each student honest and doing their best work. 

How can college admissions check for AI generated essays? 

One of the best ways a college admissions department can check for AI-generated essays is to use an AI detector tool. These tools can evaluate the content input into their system based on perplexity data, burstiness data and other criteria such as word usage and repetitive patterns found within the content. 

If an essay uses too many patterns and similar sentence structures, the AI Detector tool will tell the admissions department head that the essay is more than likely written by artificial intelligence. Once the admissions department receives the report back, which takes mere seconds, the officer can determine what they want to do with the application.

In most cases, if the admissions department has an AI content policy and the essay was found to be written by artificial intelligence, then the application will go to the denied pile. Other times, the college admissions department may review the essay to confirm that it appears to be AI-generated. 

Since AI Detector tools can be glitchy, it’s up to the college admissions department to determine what percentage of supposed AI content they will allow within the essay as it relates to an AI Detector tool’s evaluation. There are many admissions departments that refuse to let any percent of AI be allowed, while others give a little wiggle room, knowing that these detection models can be incorrect at times. 

When it comes to applying to colleges or universities, you will want to read their policies regarding AI usage on their website. This will ensure you’re following their rules and not having your essay rejected, thus preventing you from attending the college of your choice due to technical issues. 

The links contained in this product review may result in a small commission at no additional cost to you if you opt to purchase the product recommended. This goes towards supporting the advertiser's research team who are committed to only recommending high-quality products. Amber Smith is an award-winning ghostwriter who focuses on AI and health technology.