College’s AI review of Common App

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If this is the case, then why should the kids bother writing the essays themselves? Why shouldn't they just use AI? This is ridiculous.

"My math teacher made me do the math long-hand on the test, but he used a calculator to check it! Why did I even bother?!?!"

This is entirely different. Your example relates to the kid learning the material and being able to apply it. Kids are not learning to write through the process of writing an app essay. In fact, it’s a fake process in many ways- they TELL you what they are looking for in many ways (a hook, growth, a pivotal moment, don’t regurgitate your cv, etc.) so even that makes it inauthentic. So the kids have to play the game and they have an AI judge at the first hurdle judging. It’s crap. Get rid of the essays.

So don’t apply to VA Tech. If you’re scared of AI being used along with a human, a tech school probably isn’t a good fit anyway.

It's not a "tech school". It has tech, along with humanities and liberal arts.

[Anonymous]

Great. ai hallucinations will skip over my kid’s essay.

I use it for updating small databases (home project, not work). It skips over items regularly.

So will it skip an essay? Will it summarize 100 essays and get my child’s wrong?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great. ai hallucinations will skip over my kid’s essay.

I use it for updating small databases (home project, not work). It skips over items regularly.

So will it skip an essay? Will it summarize 100 essays and get my child’s wrong?

Or - throw AI prompts into the essay like these smart people did: https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Artificial-intelligence/Positive-review-only-Researchers-hide-AI-prompts-in-papers

Play it right and a 2.0 "smart" kid can get a full scholarship.

Let the Arms Race begin!

[Anonymous]

VT openly admitting that admissions is a fraud.

[Anonymous]

"Virginia Tech’s role in contributing to the national conversation about the responsible use of AI"

Like Donald Trump's role in contributing to the national conversation about the responsible use of the Presidency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If this is the case, then why should the kids bother writing the essays themselves? Why shouldn't they just use AI? This is ridiculous.

"My math teacher made me do the math long-hand on the test, but he used a calculator to check it! Why did I even bother?!?!"

This is entirely different. Your example relates to the kid learning the material and being able to apply it. Kids are not learning to write through the process of writing an app essay. In fact, it’s a fake process in many ways- they TELL you what they are looking for in many ways (a hook, growth, a pivotal moment, don’t regurgitate your cv, etc.) so even that makes it inauthentic. So the kids have to play the game and they have an AI judge at the first hurdle judging. It’s crap. Get rid of the essays.

So don’t apply to VA Tech. If you’re scared of AI being used along with a human, a tech school probably isn’t a good fit anyway.

It's not a "tech school". It has tech, along with humanities and liberal arts.

It’s a polytechnic institute. It’s literally a tech school.

[Anonymous]

Regardless of how they’re using it, students—prospective and current— will read the headline and the takeaway will be “it’s ok to use AI now!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great. ai hallucinations will skip over my kid’s essay.

I use it for updating small databases (home project, not work). It skips over items regularly.

So will it skip an essay? Will it summarize 100 essays and get my child’s wrong?

If it does skip it, don’t you think the human reviewer would notice?

[Anonymous]

Good, hopefully the LLM won’t have any built in bias. So a more structured process. Isn’t that what most people want. Still human readers involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of how they’re using it, students—prospective and current— will read the headline and the takeaway will be “it’s ok to use AI now!”

Yep

[Anonymous]

Why even bother? Just look at the transcript, ECs, test scores and recommendations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why even bother? Just look at the transcript, ECs, test scores and recommendations.

+1. A friend told me this was happening over a year ago. The CS majors are going to game this by putting in the hidden code & keywords.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good, hopefully the LLM won’t have any built in bias. So a more structured process. Isn’t that what most people want. Still human readers involved.

LLMs have bias. That's already proven.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good, hopefully the LLM won’t have any built in bias. So a more structured process. Isn’t that what most people want. Still human readers involved.

LLMs have bias. That's already proven.

+1 They are trained on human data. They very much take on the same biases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why even bother? Just look at the transcript, ECs, test scores and recommendations.

+1. A friend told me this was happening over a year ago. The CS majors are going to game this by putting in the hidden code & keywords.

And if the AI falls for that and scores the essay, say, a 10 out of 12 while human reader only gives it a 7, a second human reader will then review the app.

All the school is doing is trying to save a bit of time and money in the face of a massive increase in applications by using AI and one human for the initial read rather than two humans, with an even smaller allowance for difference (2 points vs 4 points of discrepancy under the two-human previous process) between the two scores before a third review - by a human - is done.

This is not a huge leap or an unreasonable process. People are pearl-clutching for no reason.