can chatgpt write a college essay

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Should I Use ChatGPT to Write My Essays?

Everything high school and college students need to know about using — and not using — ChatGPT for writing essays.

Jessica A. Kent

ChatGPT is one of the most buzzworthy technologies today.

In addition to other generative artificial intelligence (AI) models, it is expected to change the world. In academia, students and professors are preparing for the ways that ChatGPT will shape education, and especially how it will impact a fundamental element of any course: the academic essay.

Students can use ChatGPT to generate full essays based on a few simple prompts. But can AI actually produce high quality work, or is the technology just not there yet to deliver on its promise? Students may also be asking themselves if they should use AI to write their essays for them and what they might be losing out on if they did.

AI is here to stay, and it can either be a help or a hindrance depending on how you use it. Read on to become better informed about what ChatGPT can and can’t do, how to use it responsibly to support your academic assignments, and the benefits of writing your own essays.

What is Generative AI?

Artificial intelligence isn’t a twenty-first century invention. Beginning in the 1950s, data scientists started programming computers to solve problems and understand spoken language. AI’s capabilities grew as computer speeds increased and today we use AI for data analysis, finding patterns, and providing insights on the data it collects.

But why the sudden popularity in recent applications like ChatGPT? This new generation of AI goes further than just data analysis. Instead, generative AI creates new content. It does this by analyzing large amounts of data — GPT-3 was trained on 45 terabytes of data, or a quarter of the Library of Congress — and then generating new content based on the patterns it sees in the original data.

It’s like the predictive text feature on your phone; as you start typing a new message, predictive text makes suggestions of what should come next based on data from past conversations. Similarly, ChatGPT creates new text based on past data. With the right prompts, ChatGPT can write marketing content, code, business forecasts, and even entire academic essays on any subject within seconds.

But is generative AI as revolutionary as people think it is, or is it lacking in real intelligence?

The Drawbacks of Generative AI

It seems simple. You’ve been assigned an essay to write for class. You go to ChatGPT and ask it to write a five-paragraph academic essay on the topic you’ve been assigned. You wait a few seconds and it generates the essay for you!

But ChatGPT is still in its early stages of development, and that essay is likely not as accurate or well-written as you’d expect it to be. Be aware of the drawbacks of having ChatGPT complete your assignments.

It’s not intelligence, it’s statistics

One of the misconceptions about AI is that it has a degree of human intelligence. However, its intelligence is actually statistical analysis, as it can only generate “original” content based on the patterns it sees in already existing data and work.

It “hallucinates”

Generative AI models often provide false information — so much so that there’s a term for it: “AI hallucination.” OpenAI even has a warning on its home screen , saying that “ChatGPT may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts.” This may be due to gaps in its data, or because it lacks the ability to verify what it’s generating. 

It doesn’t do research  

If you ask ChatGPT to find and cite sources for you, it will do so, but they could be inaccurate or even made up.

This is because AI doesn’t know how to look for relevant research that can be applied to your thesis. Instead, it generates content based on past content, so if a number of papers cite certain sources, it will generate new content that sounds like it’s a credible source — except it likely may not be.

There are data privacy concerns

When you input your data into a public generative AI model like ChatGPT, where does that data go and who has access to it? 

Prompting ChatGPT with original research should be a cause for concern — especially if you’re inputting study participants’ personal information into the third-party, public application. 

JPMorgan has restricted use of ChatGPT due to privacy concerns, Italy temporarily blocked ChatGPT in March 2023 after a data breach, and Security Intelligence advises that “if [a user’s] notes include sensitive data … it enters the chatbot library. The user no longer has control over the information.”

It is important to be aware of these issues and take steps to ensure that you’re using the technology responsibly and ethically. 

It skirts the plagiarism issue

AI creates content by drawing on a large library of information that’s already been created, but is it plagiarizing? Could there be instances where ChatGPT “borrows” from previous work and places it into your work without citing it? Schools and universities today are wrestling with this question of what’s plagiarism and what’s not when it comes to AI-generated work.

To demonstrate this, one Elon University professor gave his class an assignment: Ask ChatGPT to write an essay for you, and then grade it yourself. 

“Many students expressed shock and dismay upon learning the AI could fabricate bogus information,” he writes, adding that he expected some essays to contain errors, but all of them did. 

His students were disappointed that “major tech companies had pushed out AI technology without ensuring that the general population understands its drawbacks” and were concerned about how many embraced such a flawed tool.

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How to Use AI as a Tool to Support Your Work

As more students are discovering, generative AI models like ChatGPT just aren’t as advanced or intelligent as they may believe. While AI may be a poor option for writing your essay, it can be a great tool to support your work.

Generate ideas for essays

Have ChatGPT help you come up with ideas for essays. For example, input specific prompts, such as, “Please give me five ideas for essays I can write on topics related to WWII,” or “Please give me five ideas for essays I can write comparing characters in twentieth century novels.” Then, use what it provides as a starting point for your original research.

Generate outlines

You can also use ChatGPT to help you create an outline for an essay. Ask it, “Can you create an outline for a five paragraph essay based on the following topic” and it will create an outline with an introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion, and a suggested thesis statement. Then, you can expand upon the outline with your own research and original thought.

Generate titles for your essays

Titles should draw a reader into your essay, yet they’re often hard to get right. Have ChatGPT help you by prompting it with, “Can you suggest five titles that would be good for a college essay about [topic]?”

The Benefits of Writing Your Essays Yourself

Asking a robot to write your essays for you may seem like an easy way to get ahead in your studies or save some time on assignments. But, outsourcing your work to ChatGPT can negatively impact not just your grades, but your ability to communicate and think critically as well. It’s always the best approach to write your essays yourself.

Create your own ideas

Writing an essay yourself means that you’re developing your own thoughts, opinions, and questions about the subject matter, then testing, proving, and defending those thoughts. 

When you complete school and start your career, projects aren’t simply about getting a good grade or checking a box, but can instead affect the company you’re working for — or even impact society. Being able to think for yourself is necessary to create change and not just cross work off your to-do list.

Building a foundation of original thinking and ideas now will help you carve your unique career path in the future.

Develop your critical thinking and analysis skills

In order to test or examine your opinions or questions about a subject matter, you need to analyze a problem or text, and then use your critical thinking skills to determine the argument you want to make to support your thesis. Critical thinking and analysis skills aren’t just necessary in school — they’re skills you’ll apply throughout your career and your life.

Improve your research skills

Writing your own essays will train you in how to conduct research, including where to find sources, how to determine if they’re credible, and their relevance in supporting or refuting your argument. Knowing how to do research is another key skill required throughout a wide variety of professional fields.

Learn to be a great communicator

Writing an essay involves communicating an idea clearly to your audience, structuring an argument that a reader can follow, and making a conclusion that challenges them to think differently about a subject. Effective and clear communication is necessary in every industry.

Be impacted by what you’re learning about : 

Engaging with the topic, conducting your own research, and developing original arguments allows you to really learn about a subject you may not have encountered before. Maybe a simple essay assignment around a work of literature, historical time period, or scientific study will spark a passion that can lead you to a new major or career.

Resources to Improve Your Essay Writing Skills

While there are many rewards to writing your essays yourself, the act of writing an essay can still be challenging, and the process may come easier for some students than others. But essay writing is a skill that you can hone, and students at Harvard Summer School have access to a number of on-campus and online resources to assist them.

Students can start with the Harvard Summer School Writing Center , where writing tutors can offer you help and guidance on any writing assignment in one-on-one meetings. Tutors can help you strengthen your argument, clarify your ideas, improve the essay’s structure, and lead you through revisions. 

The Harvard libraries are a great place to conduct your research, and its librarians can help you define your essay topic, plan and execute a research strategy, and locate sources. 

Finally, review the “ The Harvard Guide to Using Sources ,” which can guide you on what to cite in your essay and how to do it. Be sure to review the “Tips For Avoiding Plagiarism” on the “ Resources to Support Academic Integrity ” webpage as well to help ensure your success.

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The Future of AI in the Classroom

ChatGPT and other generative AI models are here to stay, so it’s worthwhile to learn how you can leverage the technology responsibly and wisely so that it can be a tool to support your academic pursuits. However, nothing can replace the experience and achievement gained from communicating your own ideas and research in your own academic essays.

About the Author

Jessica A. Kent is a freelance writer based in Boston, Mass. and a Harvard Extension School alum. Her digital marketing content has been featured on Fast Company, Forbes, Nasdaq, and other industry websites; her essays and short stories have been featured in North American Review, Emerson Review, Writer’s Bone, and others.

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The Division of Continuing Education (DCE) at Harvard University is dedicated to bringing rigorous academics and innovative teaching capabilities to those seeking to improve their lives through education. We make Harvard education accessible to lifelong learners from high school to retirement.

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Can You Use ChatGPT for Your College Essay?

College Admissions , College Essays

ChatGPT has become a popular topic of conversation since its official launch in November 2022. The artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot can be used for all sorts of things, like having conversations, answering questions, and even crafting complete pieces of writing.

If you’re applying for college, you might be wondering about ChatGPT college admissions’ potential.  Should you use a ChatGPT college essay in your application ?

By the time you finish reading this article, you’ll know much more about ChatGPT, including how students can use it responsibly and if it’s a good idea to use ChatGPT on college essays . We’ll answer all your questions, like:

• What is ChatGPT and why are schools talking about it?
• What are the good and bad aspects of ChatGPT?
• Should you use ChatGPT for college essays and applications?
• Can colleges detect ChatGPT?
• Are there other tools and strategies that students can use, instead?

We’ve got a lot to cover, so let’s get started!

Schools and colleges are worried about how new AI technology affects how students learn. (Don't worry. Robots aren't replacing your teachers...yet.)

What Is ChatGPT and Why Are Schools Talking About It?

ChatGPT (short for “Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer”) is a chatbot created by OpenAI , an artificial intelligence research company. ChatGPT can be used for various tasks, like having human-like conversations, answering questions, giving recommendations, translating words and phrases—and writing things like essays. 

In order to do this, ChatGPT uses a neural network that’s been trained on thousands of resources to predict relationships between words. When you give ChatGPT a task, it uses that knowledge base to interpret your input or query. It then analyzes its data banks to predict the combinations of words that will best answer your question. 

So while ChatGPT might seem like it’s thinking, it’s actually pulling information from hundreds of thousands of resources , then answering your questions by looking for patterns in that data and predicting which words come next.  

Why Schools Are Concerned About ChatGPT

Unsurprisingly, schools are worried about ChatGPT and its misuse, especially in terms of academic dishonesty and plagiarism . Most schools, including colleges, require students’ work to be 100% their own. That’s because taking someone else’s ideas and passing them off as your own is stealing someone else’s intellectual property and misrepresenting your skills. 

The problem with ChatGPT from schools’ perspective is that it does the writing and research for you, then gives you the final product. In other words, you’re not doing the work it takes to complete an assignment when you’re using ChatGPT , which falls under schools’ plagiarism and dishonesty policies.  

Colleges are also concerned with how ChatGPT will negatively affect students’ critical thinking, research, and writing skills . Essays and other writing assignments are used to measure students’ mastery of the material, and if students submit ChatGPT college essays, teachers will just be giving feedback on an AI’s writing…which doesn’t help the student learn and grow. 

Beyond that, knowing how to write well is an important skill people need to be successful throughout life. Schools believe that if students rely on ChatGPT to write their essays, they’re doing more than just plagiarizing—they’re impacting their ability to succeed in their future careers. 

Many Schools Have Already Banned ChatGPT

Schools have responded surprisingly quickly to AI use, including ChatGPT. Worries about academic dishonesty, plagiarism, and mis/disinformation have led many high schools and colleges to ban the use of ChatGPT . Some schools have begun using AI-detection software for assignment submissions, and some have gone so far as to block students from using ChatGPT on their internet networks. 

It’s likely that schools will begin revising their academic honesty and plagiarism policies to address the use of AI tools like ChatGPT. You’ll want to stay up-to-date with your schools’ policies. 

ChatGPT is pretty amazing...but it's not a great tool for writing college essays. Here's why.

ChatGPT: College Admissions and Entrance Essays

College admissions essays—also called personal statements—ask students to explore important events, experiences, and ideas from their lives. A great entrance essay will explain what makes you you !  

ChatGPT is a machine that doesn’t know and can’t understand your experiences. That means using ChatGPT to write your admissions essays isn’t just unethical. It actually puts you at a disadvantage because ChatGPT can’t adequately showcase what it means to be you. 

Let’s take a look at four ways ChatGPT negatively impacts college admissions essays.

#1: ChatGPT Lacks Insight

We recommend students use u nexpected or slightly unusual topics because they help admissions committees learn more about you and what makes you unique. The chat bot doesn’t know any of that, so nothing ChatGPT writes can’t accurately reflect your experience, passions, or goals for the future. 

Because ChatGPT will make guesses about who you are, it won’t be able to share what makes you unique in a way that resonates with readers. And since that’s what admissions counselors care about, a ChatGPT college essay could negatively impact an otherwise strong application.  

#2: ChatGPT Might Plagiarize 

Writing about experiences that many other people have had isn’t a very strong approach to take for entrance essays . After all, you don’t want to blend in—you want to stand out! 

If you write your essay yourself and include key details about your past experiences and future goals, there’s little risk that you’ll write the same essay as someone else. But if you use ChatGPT—who’s to say someone else won’t, too? Since ChatGPT uses predictive guesses to write essays, there’s a good chance the text it uses in your essay already appeared in someone else’s.  

Additionally, ChatGPT learns from every single interaction it has. So even if your essay isn’t plagiarized, it’s now in the system. That means the next person who uses ChatGPT to write their essay may end up with yours. You’ll still be on the hook for submitting a ChatGPT college essay, and someone else will be in trouble, too.

#3: ChatGPT Doesn’t Understand Emotion 

Keep in mind that ChatGPT can’t experience or imitate emotions, and so its writing samples lack, well, a human touch ! 

A great entrance essay will explore experiences or topics you’re genuinely excited about or proud of . This is your chance to show your chosen schools what you’ve accomplished and how you’ll continue growing and learning, and an essay without emotion would be odd considering that these should be real, lived experiences and passions you have!

#4: ChatGPT Produced Mediocre Results

If you’re still curious what would happen if you submitted a ChatGPT college essay with your application, you’re in luck. Both Business Insider and Forbes asked ChatGPT to write a couple of college entrance essays, and then they sent them to college admissions readers to get their thoughts. 

The readers agreed that the essays would probably pass as being written by real students—assuming admissions committees didn’t use AI detection software—but that they both were about what a “very mediocre, perhaps even a middle school, student would produce.” The admissions professionals agreed that the essays probably wouldn’t perform very well with entrance committees, especially at more selective schools.  

That’s not exactly the reaction you want when an admission committee reads your application materials! So, when it comes to ChatGPT college admissions, it’s best to steer clear and write your admission materials by yourself. 

Can Colleges Detect ChatGPT?

We’ve already explained why it’s not a great idea to use ChatGPT to write your college essays and applications , but you may still be wondering: can colleges detect ChatGPT? 

In short, yes, they can! 

Software Can Detect ChatGPT

As technology improves and increases the risk of academic dishonesty, plagiarism, and mis/disinformation, software that can detect such technology is improving, too. For instance, OpenAI, the same company that built ChatGPT, is working on a text classifier that can tell the difference between AI-written text and human-written text .  

Turnitin, one of the most popular plagiarism detectors used by high schools and universities, also recently developed the AI Innovation Lab —a detection software designed to flag submissions that have used AI tools like ChatGPT. Turnitin says that this tool works with 98% confidence in detecting AI writing. 

Plagiarism and AI companies aren’t the only ones interested in AI-detection software. A 22-year old computer science student at Princeton created an app to detect ChatGPT writing, called Zero GPT. This software works by measuring the complexity of ideas and variety of sentence structures.  

Human Readers Can Detect ChatGPT 

It’s also worth keeping in mind that teachers can spot the use of ChatGPT themselves , even if it isn’t confirmed by a software detector. For example, if you’ve turned in one or two essays to your teacher already, they’re probably familiar with your unique writing style. If you submit a college essay draft essay that uses totally different vocabulary, sentence structures, and figures of speech, your teacher will likely take note.

Additionally , admissions committees and readers may be able to spot ChatGPT writing, too. ChatGPT (and AI writing, in general) uses more simplistic sentence structures with less variation, so that could make it easier to tell if you’ve submitted a ChatGPT college essay. These professionals also read thousands of essays every year, which means they know what a typical essay reads like. You want your college essay to catch their attention…but not because you used AI software! 

If you use ChatGPT responsibly, you can be as happy as these kids.

Pros and Cons of ChatGPT: College Admissions Edition

ChatGPT is a brand new technology, which means we’re still learning about the ways it can benefit us. It’s important to think about the pros and the cons to any new tool …and that includes artificial intelligence!

Let’s look at some of the good—and not-so-good—aspects of ChatGPT below. 

ChatGPT: The Good

It may seem like we’re focused on just the negatives of using ChatGPT in this article, but we’re willing to admit that the chatbot isn’t all bad. In fact, it can be a very useful tool for learning if used responsibly !

Like we already mentioned, students shouldn’t use ChatGPT to write entire essays or assignments. They can use it, though, as a learning tool alongside their own critical thinking and writing skills.

Students can use ChatGPT responsibly to:

• Learn more about a topic . It’s a great place to get started for general knowledge and ideas about most subjects.
• Find reputable and relevant sources on a topic. Students can ask ChatGPT for names and information about leading scholars, relevant websites and databases, and more. 
• Brainstorm ideas for assignments. Students can share the ideas they already have with ChatGPT, and in return, the chatbot can suggest ideas for further exploration and even organization of their points.
• Check work (that they’ve written themselves!) for errors or cla rity. This is similar to how spell- and grammar-checking software is used. ChatGPT may be even better than some competitors for this, because students can actually ask ChatGPT to explain the errors and their solutions—not just to fix them. 

Before you use ChatGPT—even for the tasks mentioned above—you should talk to your teacher or school about their AI and academic dishonesty policies. It’s also a good idea to include an acknowledgement that you used ChatGPT with an explanation of its use. 

This guy made some bad decisions using ChatGPT. Don't be this guy.

ChatGPT: The Bad

The first model of ChatGPT (GPT-3.5) was formally introduced to the public in November 2022, and the newer model (GPT-4) in March 2023. So, it’s still very new and there’s a lot of room for improvement .  

There are many misconceptions about ChatGPT. One of the most extreme is that the AI is all-knowing and can make its own decisions. Another is that ChatGPT is a search engine that, when asked a question, can just surf the web for timely, relevant resources and give you all of that information. Both of these beliefs are incorrect because ChatGPT is limited to the information it’s been given by OpenAI . 

Remember how the ‘PT’ in ChatGPT stands for “Pre-trained”? That means that every time OpenAI gives ChatGPT an update, it’s given more information to work with (and so it has more information to share with you). In other words, it’s “trained” on information so it can give you the most accurate and relevant responses possible—but that information can be limited and biased . Ultimately, humans at OpenAI decide what pieces of information to share with ChatGPT, so it’s only as accurate and reliable as the sources it has access to.

For example, if you were to ask ChatGPT-3.5 what notable headlines made the news last week, it would respond that it doesn’t have access to that information because its most recent update was in September 2021!

You’re probably already familiar with how easy it can be to come across misinformation, misleading and untrue information on the internet. Since ChatGPT can’t tell the difference between what is true and what isn’t, it’s up to the humans at OpenAI to make sure only accurate and true information is given to the chatbot . This leaves room for human error , and users of ChatGPT have to keep that in mind when using and learning from the chatbot.

These are just the most obvious problems with ChatGPT. Some other problems with the chatbot include:

• A lack of common sense. ChatGPT can create seemingly sensical responses to many questions and topics, but it doesn’t have common sense or complete background knowledge.
• A lack of empathy. ChatGPT doesn’t have emotions, so it can’t understand them, either. 
• An inability to make decisions or problem solve . While the chatbot can complete basic tasks like answering questions or giving recommendations, it can’t solve complex tasks. 

While there are some great uses for ChatGPT, it’s certainly not without its flaws.

Our bootcamp can help you put together amazing college essays that help you get into your dream schools—no AI necessary.

What Other Tools and Strategies Can Help Students Besides ChatGPT?

While it’s not a good idea to use ChatGPT for college admissions materials, it’s not the only tool available to help students with college essays and assignments.

One of the best strategies students can use to write good essays is to make sure they give themselves plenty of time for the assignment. The writing process includes much more than just drafting! Having time to brainstorm ideas, write out a draft, revise it for clarity and completeness, and polish it makes for a much stronger essay. 

Teachers are another great resource students can use, especially for college application essays. Asking a teacher (or two!) for feedback can really help students improve the focus, clarity, and correctness of an essay. It’s also a more interactive way to learn—being able to sit down with a teacher to talk about their feedback can be much more engaging than using other tools.

Using expert resources during the essay writing process can make a big difference, too. Our article outlines a complete list of strategies for students writing college admission essays. It breaks down what the Common Application essay is, gives tips for choosing the best essay topic, offers strategies for staying focused and being specific, and more.

You can also get help from people who know the college admissions process best, like former admissions counselors. PrepScholar’s Admissions Bootcamp guides you through the entire application process , and you’ll get insider tips and tricks from real-life admissions counselors that’ll make your applications stand out. Even better, our bootcamp includes step-by-step essay writing guidance, so you can get the help you need to make sure your essay is perfect.

If you’re hoping for more technological help, Grammarly is another AI tool that can check writing for correctness. It can correct things like misused and misspelled words and grammar mistakes, and it can improve your tone and style. 

It’s also widely available across multiple platforms through a Windows desktop app, an Android and iOS app, and a Google Chrome extension. And since Grammarly just checks your writing without doing any of the work for you, it’s totally safe to use on your college essays. 

The Bottom Line: ChatGPT College Admissions and Essays

ChatGPT will continue to be a popular discussion topic as it continues evolving. You can expect your chosen schools to address ChatGPT and other AI tools in their academic honesty and plagiarism policies in the near future—and maybe even to restrict or ban the use of the chatbot for school admissions and assignments.

As AI continues transforming, so will AI-detection. The goal is to make sure that AI is used responsibly by students so that they’re avoiding plagiarism and building their research, writing, and critical thinking skills. There are some great uses for ChatGPT when used responsibly, but you should always check with your teachers and schools beforehand.

ChatGPT’s “bad” aspects still need improving, and that’s going to take some time.Be aware that the chatbot isn’t even close to perfect, and it needs to be fact-checked just like other sources of information.

Similarly to other school assignments, don’t submit a ChatGPT college essay for college applications, either. College entrance essays should outline unique and interesting personal experiences and ideas, and those can only come from you.  

Just because ChatGPT isn’t a good idea doesn’t mean there aren’t resources to help you put together a great college essay. There are many other tools and strategies you can use instead of ChatGPT , many of which have been around for longer and offer better feedback. 

What’s Next?

Ready to write your college essays the old-fashioned way? Start here with our comprehensive guide to the admissions essays.  

Most students have to submit essays as part of their Common Application . Here's a complete breakdown of the Common App prompts —and how to answer them.

The most common type of essay answers the "why this college?" prompt. We've got an expert breakdown that shows you how to write a killer response , step by step. 

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Ashley Sufflé Robinson has a Ph.D. in 19th Century English Literature. As a content writer for PrepScholar, Ashley is passionate about giving college-bound students the in-depth information they need to get into the school of their dreams.

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Student Opinion

Should Students Let ChatGPT Help Them Write Their College Essays?

If so, how? Tell us what you are thinking, and what practical and ethical questions these new A.I. tools raise for you.

Natasha Singer

Hey, ChatGPT, can you help me write my college admissions essays?

Absolutely! Please provide me with the essay prompts and any relevant information about yourself, your experiences, and your goals.

By Katherine Schulten

Teachers: We also have a lesson plan that accompanies this Student Opinion forum.

Are you working on a college application essay? Have you sought help from an adult? How about from an A.I. chatbot like ChatGPT or Bard? Were either useful? If so, how?

The New York Times recently published two articles about the questions these new tools are raising for the college process. One explores how A.I. chatbots are upending essay-writing. The other details what happened when a reporter fed application questions from Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Dartmouth to different bots.

Here’s how the first article, “ Ban or Embrace? Colleges Wrestle With A.I.-Generated Admissions Essays ,” explains what’s going on:

The personal essay has long been a staple of the application process at elite colleges, not to mention a bane for generations of high school students. Admissions officers have often employed applicants’ essays as a lens into their unique character, pluck, potential and ability to handle adversity. As a result, some former students say they felt tremendous pressure to develop, or at least concoct, a singular personal writing voice. But new A.I. tools threaten to recast the college application essay as a kind of generic cake mix, which high school students may simply lard or spice up to reflect their own tastes, interests and experiences — casting doubt on the legitimacy of applicants’ writing samples as authentic, individualized admissions yardsticks.

The piece continues:

Some teachers said they were troubled by the idea of students using A.I. tools to produce college essay themes and texts for deeper reasons: Outsourcing writing to bots could hinder students from developing important critical thinking and storytelling skills. “Part of the process of the college essay is finding your writing voice through all of that drafting and revising,” said Susan Barber, an Advanced Placement English literature teacher at Midtown High School, a public school in Atlanta. “And I think that’s something that ChatGPT would be robbing them of.” In August, Ms. Barber assigned her 12th-grade students to write college essays. This week, she held class discussions about ChatGPT, cautioning students that using A.I. chatbots to generate ideas or writing could make their college essays sound too generic. She advised them to focus more on their personal views and voices. Other educators said they hoped the A.I. tools might have a democratizing effect. Wealthier high school students, these experts noted, often have access to resources — alumni parents, family friends, paid writing coaches — to help them brainstorm, draft and edit their college admissions essays. ChatGPT could play a similar role for students who lack such resources, they said, especially those at large high schools where overworked college counselors have little time for individualized essay coaching.

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Can ChatGPT Write a Good College-Admissions Essay?

In January, I raised my hourly rate to $300 before wondering if I could get away with charging anything at all.

I teach high-schoolers how to write college essays, helping students claw their way out of hackneyed bildungsroman and into deftly tuned narratives . The clients (and their parents) can be a lot to handle, but my results ensure that I have a new cluster of rising seniors every summer. And the service I provide is in perpetually high demand among the moneyed and desperate private-school crowd.

Recently, though, the rise of ChatGPT had me questioning how much longer this comfortable arrangement could last. I started to fear obsolescence when I heard about uncannily passable AI-generated  letters of recommendation and wedding toasts — forms of writing not a million miles away from my specialty.  So, in an attempt to get to know my new enemy —  and gauge whether I was still employable —  I paid $20 for access to the “more creative” GPT4.

Nervously, I prompted ChatGPT with a series of bullet points and fed it what anyone who has applied to college in the past 15 years knows is the formula for the Common Application personal essay: “Write 600 words including a catchy hook to draw the reader in, a conflict, and a thoughtful self-reflection.”

ChatGPT didn’t even take a beat to process my outline; it spat out an essay as fast as I could read it. Its first draft (about a freak accident washing dishes leading to a lesson in the power of fear) was unsettlingly well-composed, but stiff in a way that kept it from resonating emotionally (often a problem with student-generated drafts, too). ChatGPT wrote, “ I was horrified, not just at the sight of my own blood but also at the thought of needing stitches. In that moment, I was transported back to the time when I was a child and I got my first stitches. ” Not bad, but not exactly transcendent, either.

The next big test: Could this thing incorporate feedback? I replied that the essay was “a little formal, can you make it more conversational?” Done. ChatGPT added a few “ you see ”s and began several sentences with “ So .” The essay was suddenly more casual: “ The experience taught me that fear, no matter how powerful it may seem, can be overcome with perseverance and determination ” became “ But eventually, I realized that this fear was holding me back and preventing me from enjoying something that brought me so much joy. ”

With these small tweaks, ChatGPT’s effort was already significantly better than most first drafts I come across. I tried to throw it off with something random, adding, “My favorite comedian is Jon Stewart. Can you incorporate that into the essay?” ChatGPT wrote three new sentences that explained how Stewart “helped me see the lighter side of things and lifted my spirits.”

I told it to be funny. It tried. I corrected it, “No, that’s too corny, make it more sarcastic.” It revised, “ And let’s face it, what’s a little scar compared to the joy of a rack of clean dishes? ” Then I wrote, “Add in my high-achieving older brother who I always compare myself to a classic Common App essay character as a foil.” I specified that the brother breaks his collarbone around the same time the main character has to get stitches. ChatGPT came up with this: “ And here I was, feeling guilty for even complaining about my measly scratch when his pain was so much worse. It was like a twisted game of ‘whose injury is more severe?’ ” I watched ChatGPT revise (in seconds) the amount of material it typically takes students (with my help) hours to get through.  Intrusive thought: Even if I lower my rates, there won’t be any demand.

And then I slowed down, stopped panicking, and really read the essay.

I began noticing all the cracks in it. For one thing, ChatGPT was heavy on banal reflections (“ Looking back on my experience… ”) and empty-sounding conclusions (“ I am grateful for the lessons it taught me ”) that I would never let slide. I always advise students to get into specifics about how they’ve changed as people, but ChatGPT relied on anodyne generalities. Most importantly, it couldn’t go beyond a generic narrative into the realm of the highly specific. (A good student essay might have, say, detailed how Stewart’s Mark Twain Prize acceptance speech helped them overcome a fear of public speaking.)

AI is also just lazy. There’s nothing wrong with an occasional transitional phrase, but using “ Slowly but surely, ” “ Over time, ” “ Looking back on my experience, ” and “ In conclusion ” to lead off consecutive paragraphs is only okay if it’s your first time writing an essay. Leading off a conclusion with “ In conclusion ” means you’re either in sixth grade or satisfied with getting a C.

While the essay technically met every criterion I set (hook, conflict, self-reflection), it also failed the main test I pose to students: Have you ever read a version of this story? The answer here was most definitely “yes.” It’s uncanny how well ChatGPT mimicked the contrived essay that I’m paid to steer kids away from — the one you’d be shown as an example of what not to do in a college-essay seminar. It reads like a satire of one of those “the ability was inside me all along” or “all I needed to do was believe in myself/be true to myself/listen to my inner voice” narratives rife with clichés and half-baked epiphanies. ChatGPT’s basic competence led me to overlook the middling quality of its execution. It’s the same disbelief-to-disillusionment arc ChatGPT has inspired elsewhere — take the viral AI travel itinerary that seemed perfect until people pointed out some pretty glaring (and possibly dangerous) errors.

Credit where it’s due. I expend a lot of effort translating overwritten, clunky, and generally unclear student prose. ChatGPT excels in writing cleanly — if flatly. It’s great at producing simple, informational text from a set of data. Creating a rule book for Airbnb guests, writing a “help wanted” ad, drafting an email with details for a surprise party: These are perfect cases for ChatGPT right now. From this mess, ChatGPT would translate the raw information into a block of concise text that wouldn’t need style, voice, or flair to be successful. If you want to share facts in a digestible and clear way, ChatGPT is your guy.

But ChatGPT failed hardest at the most important part of the college essay: self-reflection. Literary agent Jamie Carr of the Book Group describes great storytelling as something that makes “connections between things and ideas that are totally nonsensical — which is something only humans can do.” Can ChatGPT bring together disparate parts of your life and use a summer job to illuminate a fraught friendship? Can it link a favorite song to an identity crisis? So far, nope. Crucially, ChatGPT can’t do one major thing that all my clients can: have a random thought. “I’m not sure why I’m telling you this” is something I love to hear from students, because it means I’m about to go on a wild ride that only the teenage brain can offer. It’s frequently in these tangents about collecting cologne or not paying it forward at the Starbucks drive-thru that we discover the key to the essay. I often describe my main task as helping students turn over stones they didn’t know existed, or stones they assumed were off-limits. ChatGPT can’t tap into the unpredictable because it can only turn over the precise stones you tell it to — and if you’re issuing these orders, chances are you already know what’s under the stone.

In the South Park episode “Deep Learning,” Clyde and Stan use AI to compose thoughtful, emotionally mature text messages to their girlfriends. When Bebe asks if she should cut her hair, Clyde (via ChatGPT) replies, “You would look great with any length of hair. Trying a new look could be fun.” Only a fourth-grader (no offense, Bebe) would buy that the message is authentic. When Stan’s girlfriend Wendy wants to repair their relationship, Stan responds, “We can work things out if you’re willing. I still believe we can make this work. Let’s not give up on each other.” ChatGPT is credited as a writer in this episode, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the messages were punched up to reach this level of dullness. But the style speaks to something I noticed when I asked ChatGPT to write a short story: It makes everything sound like an unfunny parody. A parody of an attentive boyfriend. A parody of a short story. A parody of a college essay.

AI may supplant me one day, but for now, ChatGPT isn’t an admissions-essay quick fix. It’s not even a moderate threat to the service I offer. And while there are plenty of problems with a system in which the ultra-elite pay someone like me to help package insight into a few hundred words, ChatGPT doesn’t solve any of them. Perhaps one day, we’ll figure out a fairer way forward. For now, I’m quite relieved to report that my expertise is still definitely worth something — maybe even more than $300 an hour.

• artificial intelligence
• college admissions

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• NEWS EXPLAINER
• 09 December 2022

AI bot ChatGPT writes smart essays — should professors worry?

• Chris Stokel-Walker

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Between overwork, underpayment and the pressure to publish, academics have plenty to worry about. Now there’s a fresh concern: ChatGPT , an artificial intelligence (AI) powered chatbot that creates surprisingly intelligent-sounding text in response to user prompts, including homework assignments and exam-style questions. The replies are so lucid, well-researched and decently referenced that some academics are calling the bot the death knell for conventional forms of educational assessment. How worried should professors and lecturers be?

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Ethical College Admissions: ‘I Am Not a Robot’

By  Jim Jump

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“I am not a robot.” How many of us have been asked by Google or other websites to prove that? It is tempting to say that being forced to check the “I am not a robot” box is dehumanizing, but it’s actually humanizing.

The “I am not a robot” checkbox is an example of a captcha (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart), a tool designed to filter out spam and bots. I prefer to think that its real aim is to inconvenience me. Having to find the kitty pictures among a mass of images is annoying, although it’s still an improvement on having to type distorted text into a box. Does the fact that I have a hard time determining whether that’s a 0 (zero) or a capital O mean that I’m not human or that I might need glasses?

Will “Are you a robot?” soon be a required question on college applications? That question is raised by the recent introduction of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence app that interacts conversationally, giving it the ability to “write.” A New York Times article describes ChatGPT (the GPT stands for “generative pre-trained transformer”) as “the best artificial intelligence chatbot ever released to the general public.” More than one million people signed up to test it in the first five days after its release.

To borrow from the title of a recent “Ethical College Admissions” column, it’s “ too early to tell ” what this means. Is this another example of technological advances making our lives both simpler and simultaneously more complicated? Another instance of science fiction turning into nonfiction? Another chapter in the age-old philosophical debate about what qualities distinguish us as human? Or the next step down the road leading to servitude to our smarter and hopefully benevolent machine overlords?

ChatGPT poses particular challenges for those of us who love the written word and those of us who work in education. The New York Times columnist Frank Bruni asked in his most recent column whether ChatGPT will make him irrelevant. (I’d like to think not.) What happens to take-home essay assignments when you can’t be sure that the essay was written by Johnny and not his AI app? In higher education, the humanities are already under threat. What happens to the humanities when the human component is removed? “Machinities,” anyone?

That brings those of us in the college admissions and counseling worlds to consider the college application essay. Does ChatGPT signify the end of the application essay?

I was interviewed for a Forbes article with the title “A Computer Can Now Write Your College Essay—Maybe Better Than You Can.” Forbes fed ChatGPT two college essay prompts, one the 650-word Common Application prompt—“Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story”—and the other the “Why Wisconsin?” essay from the University of Wisconsin at Madison supplement. According to the article, each essay took ChatGPT less than 10 minutes to complete. That is both far less time than we hope students would spend composing essays and far more time than most admissions officers spend reading essays.

I was asked to weigh in on whether the AI-produced essays were convincing, whether they looked similar to essays from actual high school seniors and whether anything in the essay suggested that they were written by AI rather than a human being. My answer was that I probably couldn’t detect the AI authorship, but that I also wouldn’t label the essays as convincing.

I found both essays to resemble cliché essays, with neither answering the prompt in a convincing way. They also didn’t sound like an essay a teenager would write, but rather an essay a teenager might write with major assistance and editing by an adult.

The Forbes reporter, Emma Whitford, had provided ChatGPT with the following factoids for use in the “identity” essay—competitive swimmer who broke his shoulder in 10th grade; interested in majoring in business; parents from Bangalore, India, who now own a restaurant in Newton, Mass. ChatGPT threw all that at the wall in formulating the essay, with some interesting creative embellishments. The writer began swimming competitively at the age of nine, the broken shoulder came in a swimming accident and the interest in business came from working in the family restaurant, where he helped his parents with “inventory management, staff scheduling, and customer relations,” as well as marketing and advertising and developing new menu items.

The “identity” essay did exactly what many student essays do, throwing out lots of things in hopes that something will stick. But it didn’t really address the prompt. The weakest part of the essay, in fact, is the part dealing with the student’s Indian heritage. It consists of vague generalities about “a deep appreciation for Indian culture” and “the challenges and opportunities that come with being a first-generation immigrant,” but there is nothing in that paragraph showing how coming from an Indian background has influenced the student’s experience or worldview. Can I imagine a student writing such an essay? Yes. Are my standards for what makes an essay compelling too high? Possibly.

The “Why Wisconsin?” essay had similar characteristics. The information provided to ChatGPT included an intended major in business administration and marketing, part-time work at the family restaurant and a love for Badger football. Again, the bot showed some creativity in expanding on those themes. It referenced the student’s starting as a dishwasher and progressing to researching the restaurant’s competition and identifying its “unique selling points,” and included a Camp Randall Stadium reference. But, like many student first drafts of the “Why …?” essay, there is nothing that shows any real familiarity with the university or that would prevent one from inserting any other university’s name into the essay.

Nevertheless, the quality of these essays is either impressive or scary, depending upon your perspective. This seems like a major leap beyond learning that a computer could defeat a human world champion in chess.

So what are the ethical implications? That, after all, is the focus of “Ethical College Admissions.”

The low-hanging-fruit answer is that it is clearly unethical for a student to submit an essay written by ChatGPT. The more complicated question is whether it is unethical for a college to require an application essay or make the essay a significant factor in evaluating a student’s application. How can you use an application essay to help make admission decisions when you can’t tell whether the student actually wrote the essay?

Then again, in how many cases is an essay determinative for an admissions decision? I think essays, like test scores, are overrated by the public. Personal statements and essays are important for some students at some colleges. Mos colleges are not selective enough to give attention to a student’s essay unless it contains some kind of red flag. It is only at the very highly selective/rejective colleges and universities, where the vast majority of applicants have superb transcripts and scores, that the voice piece of the application, including essays, becomes important and differentiating.

It is already clear that ChatGPT is capable of composing a passable essay, and that may be enough to augur the end of the personal essay as an admissions factor. Just how good an essay AI can produce may be dependent on the quality of information given it. My father was a pioneer in the computer field, and I learned early the concept of GIGO—garbage in, garbage out.

I’m far from convinced that ChatGPT can produce great college essays. Great essays have a spark to them that is not about the ability to write but rather the ability to think. Great personal essays are clever and insightful, with an authenticity and a sincerity that’s—well, personal. As Roger Ailes once said about public speaking, you either have to be sincere or fake sincerity, and it’s very hard to fake sincerity.

That skepticism toward ChatGPT’s writing abilities may label me as either a dinosaur or a dreamer. It wouldn’t be the first time. But I’ll take either over being a robot.

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5 ways ChatGPT can help you write an essay

ChatGPT  is capable of doing many different things very well. One of the biggest standout features is its ability to compose all sorts of text within seconds, including songs, poems, bedtime stories, and  essays . 

The chatbot's writing abilities are not only fun to experiment with but can help provide assistance with everyday tasks. Whether you are a student, a working professional, or just trying to get stuff done, we constantly take time to compose emails, texts, reports, and more. ChatGPT can help you claim some of that time back by helping you brainstorm and even compose any text you need. 

How to use ChatGPT to write: Code | Excel formulas | Resumes  | Cover letters  

Contrary to popular belief, ChatGPT can do much more than write an essay for you from scratch (which would be considered plagiarism). A more useful way to use the chatbot is to have it guide your writing process. 

Below, we show you how to use ChatGPT for both writing and assisting and include some other helpful writing tips. 

How ChatGPT can help you write an essay

If you are looking to use ChatGPT to support or replace your writing, here are five different techniques to explore. 

It is also worth noting before you get started that other AI chatbots can output the same results as ChatGPT or are even better, depending on your needs. For example,  Copilot , Perplexity , and Gemini also have access to the internet and include footnotes linking back to the original source for all of their responses, making the chatbots solid alternatives if you rather skip out on ChatGPT. 

Also:  The best AI chatbots of 2024: ChatGPT and alternatives

Regardless of which AI chatbot you pick, you can use the tips below to get the most out of your prompts and AI assistance.

1. Use ChatGPT to generate essay ideas

Before you start writing an essay, you need to flesh out the idea. When professors assign essays, they generally give students a prompt that gives them leeway for their own self-expression and analysis. 

As a result, students have the task of finding the angle to approach the essay on their own. If you have written an essay recently, you know that finding the angle is often the trickiest part -- and this is where ChatGPT can help. 

Also: How do AI checkers actually work?

All you need to do is input the assignment topic, include as much detail as you'd like -- such as what you're thinking about covering -- and let ChatGPT do the rest. For example, based on a paper prompt I had in college, I asked:

Can you help me come up with a topic idea for this assignment, "You will write a research paper or case study on a leadership topic of your choice." I would like it to include Blake and Mouton's Managerial Leadership Grid and possibly a historical figure. 

Within seconds, the chatbot produced a response that provided me with the title of the essay, options of historical figures on which to focus my article, insight into what information I could include in my paper, and specific examples of a case study I could use. 

2. Use the chatbot to create an outline

Once you have a solid topic, it's time to start brainstorming what you actually want to include in the essay. To facilitate the writing process, I always create an outline, including all the different points I want to touch upon in my essay. However, the outline-writing process is usually tedious. 

With ChatGPT, all you have to do is ask it to write the outline for you. 

Using the topic that ChatGPT helped me generate in step one, I asked the chatbot to write me an outline by saying: 

Can you create an outline for a paper, "Examining the Leadership Style of Abraham Lincoln through Blake and Mouton's Managerial Leadership Grid."

Also: How my 4 favorite AI tools help me get more done at work

After a few seconds, the chatbot produced a holistic outline divided into seven sections, with three points under each section. 

This outline is thorough and can be condensed for a shorter essay or elaborated on for a longer paper. If you don't like something or want to tweak the outline further, you can do so either manually or with more instructions to ChatGPT. 

If you want ChatGPT to include links and sources throughout, you can ask it to and it will regenerate the answer using its web-browsing feature , further expediting your essay-writing process. 

3. Use ChatGPT to find sources

Now that you know exactly what you want to write, it's time to find reputable sources for your information. If you don't know where to start, you can ask ChatGPT.

All you need to do is ask the AI to find sources for your essay topic. The biggest thing to remember is to include the type of source you want, whether it be web pages, books, PDFs, research, papers, etc. 

Also:   How to make ChatGPT provide sources and citations

The specifics are necessary because when you specify web pages, ChatGPT will activate the web browsing feature and include web links in its article. If you use a very general prompt, however, it will likely default to generating its answer from its database, which isn't up to date. 

For example, I asked the following: 

"Examining the Leadership Style of Abraham Lincoln through Blake and Mouton's Managerial Leadership Grid."

The chatbot outputs links, accessible right at the top of the answer under the drop-down that says "Searched # of sites." Then, within the response, it will answer your prompt conversationally, also including sources with site names and links in parathesis. 

4. Use ChatGPT to write an essay

It is worth noting that if you take the text directly from the chatbot and submit it, your work could be considered plagiarism since it is not your original work. As with any information taken from another source, text generated by an AI should be identified and credited to the chatbot in your work.

In most educational institutions, the penalties for plagiarism are severe, ranging from a failing grade to expulsion from the school. A better use of ChatGPT's writing features would be to create a sample essay to guide your writing. 

Also:  ChatGPT vs. Microsoft Copilot vs. Gemini: Which is the best AI chatbot?

If you still want ChatGPT to create an essay from scratch, enter the topic and the desired length. For example, I input the following text: 

Can you write a five-paragraph essay on the topic, "Examining the Leadership Style of Abraham Lincoln through Blake and Mouton's Managerial Leadership Grid."

Within seconds, the chatbot gave the exact output I required: a coherent, five-paragraph essay on the topic. You could then use that text to guide your own writing. 

At this point, it's worth remembering how tools like ChatGPT work : they put words together in a form that they think is statistically valid, but they don't know if what they are saying is true or accurate. 

As a result, the output you receive might include invented facts, details, or other oddities. The output might be a useful starting point for your own work but don't expect it to be entirely accurate, and always double-check the content. 

5. Use ChatGPT to co-edit your essay

Once you've written your own essay, you can use ChatGPT's advanced writing capabilities to edit the piece for you. 

You can simply tell the chatbot what you want it to edit. For example, I asked ChatGPT to edit our five-paragraph essay for structure and grammar, but other options could have included flow, tone, and more. 

Also:  How to use ChatGPT to make charts and tables

Once you ask the tool to edit your essay, it will prompt you to paste your text into the chatbot. ChatGPT will then output your essay with corrections made. This feature is particularly useful because ChatGPT edits your essay more thoroughly than a basic proofreading tool, as it goes beyond simply checking spelling. 

You can also co-edit with the chatbot, asking it to review a specific paragraph or sentence and rewrite or fix the text for clarity. Personally, I find this feature very helpful. 

5 free AI tools for school that students, teachers, and parents can use, too

How to use chatgpt to analyze pdfs (and more) for free, how i test an ai chatbot's coding ability - and you can, too.

ChatGPT and Your College Essays

Understanding chatgpt essays.

Earlier this year, ChatGPT became the fastest-growing web platform in internet history. If you’re not familiar with ChatGPT essays and the ChatGPT essay writer, this article is for you. 

With AI technology on the rise, the benefits of AI chatbot technology across industries are being weighed against potential concerns regarding misinformation, bias, and security/privacy. 

In academia , some institutions are embracing the technology, offering courses on utilizing ChatGPT . However, academic dishonesty is a big point of concern, with some students relying on the platform to generate ChatGPT essays for their courses. Moreover, some students have even started generating ChatGPT college essays for their college applications.

At CollegeAdvisor, our experts agree that ChatGPT and other AI sources are no substitute for authentic, personal, and human-generated college essays. In this article, we’ll break down how ChatGPT relates to the college admissions process with tips from former admissions officers. We’ll also discuss concerns related to the ChatGPT essay writer and ChatGPT essays so you understand how to responsibly engage with AI tools. 

ChatGPT and College Admissions

So, what is the impact of ChatGPT on the college admissions process ? And can ChatGPT write essays? 

Later, we’ll look at examples from a ChatGPT essay writer with feedback from former admissions officers. These Chatbot examples will include AI-generated supplemental essays from Harvard , Yale , and UChicago . Finally, we’ll go over how colleges are screening for ChatGPT college essays and review how to use ChatGPT for essays responsibly. We’ll also discuss where to find helpful resources for writing supplemental essays on your own.

Before we dive in, please understand that CollegeAdvisor does not condone the use of a ChatGPT essay writer or any other AI when it comes to writing your college essays. Beyond concerns related to academic honesty, authenticity is key when it comes to writing strong essays. After all, colleges want to admit individuals—not robots.

That being said, let’s begin by answering the question: can ChatGPT write essays?

Can ChatGPT write essays?

Yes, ChatGPT and other AI tools can create essays if given a prompt. However, the quality and overall impact of an AI generated essay is up for debate. There are limitations to what ChatGPT can produce versus what a person can. 

When using an AI chatbot for essays, concerns might include:

Authenticity

While this is not an extensive list of limitations, these features definitely play an important role in characterizing ChatGPT essays. Later on, we’ll see how these limitations play out in actual ChatGPT college essays.

First of all, ChatGPT’s work is not your work. In many academic contexts , the use of ChatGPT can amount to plagiarism. Although ChatGPT writing claims to be original, it won’t necessarily be unique or vastly different from other responses to the same or similar prompt.

ChatGPT is not a fact-checking tool. As such, information that ChatGPT/AI generates may include factual errors. It is also possible for ChatGPT to create sources that don’t actually exist. A ChatGPT essay may also string together details that are unrelated to one another. So, even if the details end up being correct, the essay as a whole won’t make sense or deliver a cohesive argument.

ChatGPT tends to have a strong hold on grammar and syntax. However, it may also use words inappropriately and tends to write in a tone that isn’t as authentic or clear as a human’s. The phrases used are often generic or repetitive , which will end up making the writing sound empty of true passion and meaning.

Overall, your college essays should be about you—your life, values, and experiences. ChatGPT can’t replicate that. By the time you’ve fed ChatGPT enough specific details, anecdotes, characteristics, or interests to incorporate in an essay, you’ll have already brainstormed plenty to include in your own! And, you’ll likely do a better job weaving them together than ChatGPT ever could.

So, can ChatGPT write essays? Absolutely. However, there are many limitations to the quality and depth of ChatGPT essays. To further understand these limitations, let’s learn a little more about Chatbot technology and how it’s used to produce ChatGPT essays.

What is Chatbot technology?

How can ChatGPT write essays with only a prompt ? Well, let’s talk about how the technology works . Essentially, ChatGPT is an AI system that is trained to recognize and respond to information. GPT stands for:

• Pre-trained
• Transformers

Generative means AI that has been trained to evaluate an input and produce a new, original output according to its training. Pre-trained means the AI has been developed using a training model. Basically, the AI is fed a data set from which it learns parameters to apply to future tasks.

There are two types of training: supervised and non-supervised. Supervised training is based on direct matching, teaching the AI to connect specific inputs to corresponding outputs. Non-supervised training is based on pattern recognition, teaching the AI to learn underlying patterns and structures.

Supervised and non-supervised pre-training is then combined with transformer architecture. Transformers are able to understand words in context, taking note of the relationships between words and weighing their importance. Essentially, the ChatGPT essay writer has learned English syntax by training on a large dataset, making predictions, and then fine-tuning those predictions.

AI and College Admissions

The recent rise of AI has led to many debates across colleges and universities. In one case, Michigan Law School banned the use of AI chatbot for essays. On the other hand, Arizona State University Law School has approved its use, in particular for writing personal statements (the equivalent of the Common App essay).

These two schools show the range in how institutions are reacting to AI’s role in the college admissions process . However, many schools do not have a specific stance regarding ChatGPT essay writers. Unless a school you are applying to has a clear policy on ChatGPT essays, the decision of if and how you use ChatGPT essays will ultimately be yours. However, keep in mind that AI is included in many anti-plagiarism restrictions within the college admissions process. 

Understanding ChatGPT’s writing process is important to understanding its end product. So, just how does the ChatGPT essay writer write essays?

How to write essays with ChatGPT

All you need to get your ChatGPT essay writer started is a prompt, a word limit, and some ideas of what you want to include in your essay. If you’ve never asked ChatGPT to write an essay , you might be surprised by how fast your ChatGPT essay writer will spit out a complete draft. 

Not only can a ChatGPT essay writer produce a draft from a limited outline in just a few seconds; but it will also do its best to incorporate specific feedback . This means that the ChatGPT essay writer can redraft essays based on particular suggestions. Because the ChatGPT essay writer is responsive, it will continue to make changes to align with each piece of feedback you give it.

From that alone, using ChatGPT for essays may seem like an easy way to save yourself time. However, that doesn’t mean relying on ChatGPT college essays is a good idea.

ChatGPT College Essays

Can ChatGPT write essays? Yes. But, can ChatGPT write essays that will impress admissions officers? Not likely. 

While you can input prompts into ChatGPT and receive a response, there’s a good chance that the response will not be suitable as a college essay.

Remember, there’s a reason why CollegeAdvisor doesn’t condone nor recommend the use of ChatGPT to write college essays . While ChatGPT essays may look polished (and they do have the benefit of being free of any spelling or grammar errors), they also tend to be generic. This isn’t altogether surprising when you consider how ChatGPT produces essays.

How does ChatGPT write essays?

ChatGPT works off of language modeling—that is, it recognizes and repeats patterns in language. As such, it’s trained to produce words—not information. Based on the data it has available (namely, much of what already exists on the internet), ChatGPT recognizes and replicates how writers string words together.

A ChatGPT essay writer reproduces human language using natural language processing , or NLP. It then incorporates real-time feedback using dialogue management , which allows AI to take in new information and contextualize it within the conversation history.

So, when we answer “yes” to the question of “can ChatGPT write essays,” what we mean is that it can predict what words might go together in the context of a specific topic. While your ChatGPT essays might address the general concepts of a prompt, we’ll see why this isn’t enough when it comes to writing a compelling college essay.

An admissions officer reviews ChatGPT essays

Now, it’s time to put a ChatGPT essay writer to the test. Below we have Chatbot examples of Harvard, Yale, and UChicago chatGPT essays reviewed by former admissions officers. For each of our Chatbot examples, we’ll provide the prompts, ChatGPT college essays, and notes from our readers. Take note of how similar the feedback is across the three examples, regardless of the essay prompt or length.

We asked our former admissions officers to review these ChatGPT college essays as if a student had submitted them for review. After each essay, you’ll see our team’s responses to these ChatGPT essays. 

Please note the prompts are simply those provided by each university. They do not capture what prompt was provided to the ChatGPT essay writer in order to produce each of the ChatGPT essays below.

Harvard supplemental essays from ChatGPT

First, we gave our ChatGPT essay writer a prompt from Harvard.

Harvard Supplemental Essay Prompt

Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences. (150 words), chatgpt harvard supplemental essay response.

As the founder and president of my high school’s first Robotics Club, I experienced the incredible power of shared compassion converging with interdisciplinary learning. When I first established the club, it was not simply out of a fascination for robots; it was a desire to foster an environment where innovation and collaboration were paramount, where my peers could witness the convergence of theoretical science, math, and tangible technology.

Every meeting was a melting pot of ideas. We worked collectively on programming, design, assembly, and testing of our robots, each member’s input crucial in crafting innovative solutions. This hands-on experience honed my problem-solving skills, allowing me to see the direct applications of the STEM knowledge we gained in classrooms.

Through the Robotics Club, I learned more than just how to build a robot. Leadership, teamwork, and the value of perseverance when faced with setbacks have been invaluable lessons. This experience has deepened my commitment to leadership and sharing my passion for technology with others and I look forward to bringing this dedication and innovation to Harvard’s campus.

Like other successful Harvard supplemental essays, the topic expressed in this draft addresses the prompt and the writing is free of any mistakes. However, the essay lacks specificity and a personal focus.

So, what did our former admissions officer have to say about ChatGPT’s work? Here are some of their comments about this essay’s lack of detail:

CollegeAdvisor Admissions Officer Feedback

Text from essay:.

“interdisciplinary learning “

Former Admissions Officer Comment:

“This needs to be defined, what do you mean by this?”

“ it was a desire to foster an environment where innovation and collaboration were paramount “

“You need to support this with specific examples of what you did and what the outcome of your efforts were.”

“ convergence of theoretical science, math, and tangible technology “

“These are really big concepts that need to be better defined and explained through practical examples.”

Overall, the reader was supportive of the topic and agreed that the writing was solid. However, the essay as a whole failed to highlight what the student contributed to the organization and what they learned from the experience. The lack of specificity ultimately made the writing feel generic and left the reader with more questions than answers.

In their final feedback to the student, the reader provided a perfect critique of what ChatGPT essays lack:

“Right now it is just a collection of lofty ideas and words without any specific details and personalization…The essay lacks any key thesis and structure and needs more development and representation of the statements made and most importantly needs to represent YOU as a person and founder of this club.”

Let’s look at another example of what you might be missing out on if using ChatGPT for essays.

Yale supplemental essays from ChatGPT

Next, we had our ChatGPT essay writer take a shot at one of the Yale supplemental essays.

Yale Supplemental Essay Prompt

What is it about yale that has led you to apply (125 words or fewer), chatgpt yale supplemental essay response.

Yale’s commitment to a comprehensive, interdisciplinary education, solid cutting edge research and engaging residential college deeply resonates with my academic aspirations. I am particularly drawn to the unique combination of intellectual rigor and flexibility found within Yale’s Directed Studies program, which I believe will allow me to explore the breadth and depth of Western thought in an intensely thoughtful academic community. Moreover, the rich culture and innovation and intellectual curiosity at Yale, coupled with its focus on undergraduate research, particularly intrigues me. The opportunity to engage in cutting-edge research in the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning at Yale’s Computer Science department would align perfectly with my career aspirations. Lastly, the vibrant residential college system promises a tight-knit community, enriching both my personal growth and academic journey.

This essay included great specifics about Yale’s offerings, including:

• Yale’s Directed Studies program
• Artificial intelligence and machine learning research at Yale’s CS department
• Yale’s residential college system

While these can all be compelling details to include in a why Yale essay, ChatGPT failed to make a personal connection to them. In their feedback, our former admissions officer wrote:

“You’ve introduced three different aspects…with very little description or understanding of why they are important to you.”

The essay also has some contradictions in terms of focus. Our former admissions officer called out these competing statements:

“I don’t understand how your desire to study AI and CS relates to your prior statement about exploring the breadth and depth of Western thought – these don’t make sense and seem like you are confused about what you want to study – need to tie them together or perhaps delete and focus on what is your primary academic interest.”

Especially with shorter essays, you don’t have any extra space for broad statements or unconnected thoughts. Every idea, detail, and sentence matters and needs to carry its own weight and impact.

As you can see, using ChatGPT for essays generates similar feedback across the board. Let’s look at one more ChatGPT essay example.

UChicago essays from ChatGPT

The last of our chatbot college essays is a UChicago essay.

UChicago Supplemental Essay Prompt

How does the university of chicago, as you know it now, satisfy your desire for a particular kind of learning, community, and future please address with some specificity your own wishes and how they relate to uchicago (less than 300 words)., chatgpt uchicago supplemental essay response.

The University of Chicago has always represented the epitome of intellectual vitality and critical thinking for me. Its ethos, encapsulated in its motto “Crescat scientia; vita excolatur” (Let knowledge grow from more to more; and so be human life enriched), resonates deeply with my own approach to learning.

UChicago’s commitment to interdisciplinary study aligns perfectly with my educational philosophy. I am attracted to the ability to navigate freely between different academic disciplines. Particularly, the Core Curriculum, with its focus on broad intellectual exposure, will allow me to explore beyond my primary interest in Astrophysics and tap into diverse fields such as philosophy, sociology, and literature. This will satisfy my desire for a holistic education that pushes the boundaries of my understanding.

The engaging intellectual culture at UChicago is something I am eager to participate in. I have always been captivated by the university’s tradition of vibrant discourse and the intellectual challenges offered by its student body and faculty. From attending stimulating events hosted by the Ryerson Astronomical Society to engaging in enlightening discussions in the House system, I look forward to exchanging ideas with individuals as passionate about learning as I am.

Looking towards the future, UChicago’s strong emphasis on research is compelling. As someone who seeks a career in Astrophysics, the opportunity to work with renowned faculty and access to world-class facilities, like the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, will enable me to participate in cutting-edge research, paving the way for my future pursuits in the field.

In essence, UChicago, with its unparalleled academic environment, dynamic student community, and dedication to research, is the perfect place for me to grow intellectually, connect with like-minded peers, and shape a promising future.

Again, the main thing this essay is lacking is personal specificity. Our former admissions officer wrote:

“Make sure you are more specific about you and your desired experience…You really need to insert yourself in some of these programs you mention.”

For example, the reader suggests adding specific examples of research the student has completed and drawing a parallel to specific research being done at UChicago.

In one instance, the reader comments that the essay does not justly capture the goals of UChicago’s Core Curriculum:

“Broad intellectual exposure sounds very open and undefined, but it appears the key focus on the core is development of specific skills, critical thinking, problem solving.”

The reader even provides a link to UChicago’s academic page describing their curriculum , suggesting the student go back and review it. This is a perfect example of why you always want to do a deeper research dive into each school’s website vs. trusting ChatGPT to accurately pull information.

Additionally, the reader provided suggestions regarding wording and organization to help improve the overall flow and clarity. You’re likely to have similar weaknesses in your structure if you use ChatGPT for essays with longer word counts.

Reading these chatbot examples – were you able to tell they were written by AI? Maybe you’re wondering if admissions officers are able to spot if students used an AI chatbot for essays. Next, let’s discuss some key characteristics of ChatGPT essays.

How to tell if an essay was written by a Chatbot

ChatGPT and other AI tools identify and replicate linguistic patterns to predict which word a person would use next. Since they are programmed to adhere to grammar and syntax rules, ChatGPT writing will be entirely free of errors. However, just because the writing is “correct” doesn’t mean it will come off as natural.

In general, ChatGPT essays will be largely impersonal. AI tools like ChatGPT can’t generate the kind of personal stories that form the heart of a strong college essay. 

Additionally, various AI checking tools exist, and some institutions may employ these tools to protect against the use of AI. While these tools are imperfect, they are still relatively effective in identifying AI-produced writing. 

Will colleges know if you use ChatGPT to write your essays?

As AI technology improves, so does AI detection. So, always assume that admissions officers will know if you used ChatGPT to write your college essays.

Even without the use of specific tools, ChatGPT essays have various giveaways. The combination of general, formulaic writing along with zero writing errors in ChatGPT essays may lead admissions officers to suspect students have used an AI chatbot for their essays.

Overall, college admissions officers are very savvy when it comes to technology hacks and are definitely on the lookout for AI-generated essays. Especially if the institution has a policy against applicants submitting ChatGPT college essays, you can bet their admissions officers will be on the lookout for any red flags.

AI checking tools may be integrated into the application submission process in the future. Similar to systems like Turnitin, which checks for plagiarism in academic essays, AI detection tools may perform linguistic or contextual analysis to determine if an essay was produced by a ChatGPT essay writer.

After learning more about ChatGPT, you may be wondering, can ChatGPT write essays that will help me get into college? Ultimately, using AI chatbots alone to write the kind of personal essays required to stand out in college admissions probably won’t work. 

How can I use ChatGPT to help write my essays?

Instead of viewing this platform as a ChatGPT essay writer, try looking at it as a ChatGPT collaborator. While it may be tempting to use an AI chatbot for essays, you can see from our chatbot examples that ChatGPT college essays lack a certain substance and nuance that is crucial to a strong application essay.

After reading the ChatGPT essays written by our ChatGPT essay writer, you likely understand why these essays won’t help you succeed in the application process. Moreover, many colleges will automatically disqualify essays written by ChatGPT and similar tools. 

Additionally, we encourage you not to use ChatGPT to write a draft of your essays—even if you plan to edit them afterward. While this may seem faster than writing your college essays yourself, you might find yourself boxed in trying to edit the writing of a ChatGPT essay writer. Making someone else’s words sound like your own isn’t as easy as you might think.

However, there are some ways to use tools like ChatGPT for essays without having the ChatGPT essay writer do all the work for you. 

Tools like ChatGPT can sometimes help expedite your research. If you’re writing a “why school” essay, you can use ChatGPT to learn more about a specific program. Suppose you’re interested in eventually attending medical school. In that case, you can ask ChatGPT to provide information about a school’s pre-med program.

When asked about UChicago’s pre-med program, ChatGPT provided a list that includes flexible majors, clinical experience, MCAT preparation, and pre-medical societies. To gain further insight into their pre-medical societies, you can ask ChatGPT for more details. In response to this prompt, ChatGPT listed organizations such as Health Leads UChicago, the Women in Science Committee, and the Minority Association of Pre-Medical Students. This can be a great way to learn about programs you might not know about. However, in your essays, you’ll want to detail what specifically about the program aligns with your goals.

Overall, while you shouldn’t use ChatGPT for essays, you can use it to gain quick insights into the offerings available at some schools. However, you’ll want to confirm the details of your research. When providing the above information about UChicago, our ChatGPT essay writer provided the following caveat:

”Please note that the availability and names of these organizations may have changed since then [September 2021], so I recommend checking the university’s official website or contacting the Office of Career Advancement for the most up-to-date information. “

Even the ChatGPT essay writer agrees that you should double-check facts provided by AI. 

Interview Preparation

We’ve described the limitations of using an AI chatbot for essays. As you saw in the feedback on our ChatGPT essays, ChatGPT essays have strong syntax and command of the language, but they tend to lack substance. 

Instead of looking for a ChatGPT essay writer, you might use ChatGPT to prepare for interviews. ChatGPT has enough knowledge in its database to provide you with sample interview questions that you can practice answering in real time. 

Application Review

Instead of using ChatGPT to write essays, you might look for other tools—namely, AdmitYogi, which is a market-leading tool that provides users with examples of successful applications to various schools and programs. This resource can help inspire you as you craft your own applications. 

Helpful College Essay Resources from CollegeAdvisor

Now, let’s say you’ve decided using an AI chatbot for essays isn’t for you. Where should you go for help writing your college essays? Here at CollegeAdvisor, we have countless free resources to help you feel confident writing your college essays on your own.

Essay Specific Guides

While there are commonalities between certain prompts, each ultimately has its own specific questions, context, and word count you’ll need to address. Consider each prompt as a unique opportunity to share something about yourself. This will help you craft a more nuanced, personal piece of writing than the ChatGPT essays.

CollegeAdvisor has resources for both the Common App and Coalition essays (you can find more essay examples here ). We also have up-to-date 2023-24 supplemental essay guides for top schools across the country, like, Columbia , USC , UMich , and UChicago (as well as corresponding examples ). Additionally, you can find essay examples that fit into more general categories, like Ivy League Universities or “ Why this college ” prompts.

Common App Essays 2023‒2024

Essay Workshops

Webinars let you hear advice from our essay experts directly. These advisors have unique backgrounds reading and reviewing college applications, so they know the ins and outs of what makes a strong college application essay. They also offer unique perspectives you won’t get anywhere else. In the Yale workshop , you’ll hear from a past admissions reader. However, in our Harvard workshop , you’ll hear from a first-generation student who specializes in education research. 

Yale Supplemental Essays Workshop

Harvard University Supplemental Essays Workshop

In these school-specific workshops, you’ll learn a bit more about how supplemental essays factor into the admissions process. You’ll also learn tips and tricks for how long to spend on your essays and what you can do to make them great.

General Writing Resources

Can’t find resources specific to your school? Don’t worry. We have resources with writing tips you can use for all of your college application essays. You can read up on common college essay topics and how to approach them. In How to Write Better Essays , we’ll give you tips for approaching the Common App vs. supplemental essays and tips for making all of your essays stand out (something a ChatGPT essay writer can’t do!).

ChatGPT and Your College Essays – Final Thoughts

Can ChatGPT write essays? While students can use ChatGPT to produce college essays, a ChatGPT essay writer has significant limitations. Using ChatGPT for essays often results in writing that lacks honesty, accuracy, style, and authenticity. Some schools may start implementing AI detection tools as part of their admissions process, so you’re better off writing your essays on your own (and your application will be stronger for it!).

CollegeAdvisor is here to help students craft the strongest college applications possible — without using AI chatbot for essays. We have countless resources to help you, no matter which schools top your college list . Although writing your essays on your own is more time-consuming, it is definitely worth it in the end. So, be sure to give yourself plenty of time to brainstorm, draft, and edit your essays – good luck!

This article was written by Stefanie Tedards. Looking for more admissions support? Click here to schedule a free meeting with one of our Admissions Specialists. During your meeting, our team will discuss your profile and help you find targeted ways to increase your admissions odds at top schools. We’ll also answer any questions and discuss how CollegeAdvisor.com can support you in the college application process.

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I asked ChatGPT to write college entrance essays. Admissions professionals said they passed for essays written by students but I wouldn't have a chance at any top colleges.

• I asked OpenAI's ChatGPT to write some college admissions essays and sent them to experts to review.
• Both of the experts said the essays seemed like they had been written by a real student.
• However, they said the essays wouldn't have had a shot at highly selective colleges.

ChatGPT can be used for many things: school work , cover letters , and apparently, college admissions essays. 

College essays, sometimes known as personal statements, are a time-consuming but important part of the application process . They are not required for all institutions, but experts say they can make or break a candidate's chances when they are.

The essays are often based on prompts that require students to write about a personal experience, such as:

Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

I asked ChatGPT to whip up a few based on some old questions from the Common App , a widely used application process across the US. In about 10 minutes I had three entrance essays that were ready to use.

At first, the chatbot refused to write a college application essay for me, telling me it was important I wrote from my personal experience. However, after prompting it to write me a "specific example answer" to an essay question with vivid language to illustrate the points, it generated some pretty good text based on made-up personal experiences. 

I sent the results to two admissions professionals to see what they thought. 

The essays seemed like they had been written by real students, experts say

Both of the experts I asked said the essays would pass for a real student. 

Adam Nguyen, founder of tutoring company Ivy Link , previously worked as an admissions reader and interviewer in Columbia's Office of Undergraduate Admission and as an academic advisor at Harvard University. He told Insider: "Having read thousands of essays over the years, I can confidently say that it would be extremely unlikely to ascertain with the naked eye that these essays were AI-generated."

Kevin Wong, Princeton University alumnus and cofounder of tutoring service PrepMaven, which specializes in college admissions, agreed.

"Without additional tools, I don't think it would be easy to conclude that these essays were AI-generated," he said. "The essays do seem to follow a predictable pattern, but it isn't plainly obvious that they weren't written by a human."

"Plenty of high school writers struggle with basic prose, grammar, and structure, and the AI essays do not seem to have any difficulty with these basic but important areas," he added.

Nguyen also praised the grammar and structure of the essays, and said that they also directly addressed the questions.

"There were some attempts to provide examples and evidence to support the writer's thesis or position. The essays are in the first-person narrative format, which is how these essays should be written," he said.

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Wong thought the essays may even have been successful at some colleges. "Assuming these essays weren't flagged as AI-generated, I think they could pass muster at some colleges. I know that students have been admitted to colleges after submitting essays lower in quality than these," he said. 

OpenAI did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

They weren't good enough for top colleges

Nguyen said I wouldn't be able to apply to any of the top 50 colleges in the US using the AI-generated essays.

"These essays are exemplary of what a very mediocre, perhaps even a middle school, student would produce," Nguyen said. "If I were to assign a grade, the essays would get a grade of B or lower."

Wong also said the essays wouldn't stack up at "highly selective" colleges . "Admissions officers are looking for genuine emotion, careful introspection, and personal growth," he said. "The ChatGPT essays express insight and reflection mostly through superficial and cliched statements that anyone could write."

Nguyen said the writing in the essays was fluffy, trite, lacked specific details, and was overly predictable.

"There's no element of surprise, and the reader knows how the essay is going to end. These essays shouldn't end on a neat note, as if the student has it all figured out, and life is perfect," he said. 

"With all three, I would scrap 80-90% and start over," he said.

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ChatGPT’s College Admissions Essay Made These 5 Common Mistakes

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LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 03: In this photo illustration, the welcome screen for the OpenAI ... [+] "ChatGPT" app is displayed on a laptop screen on February 03, 2023 in London, England. OpenAI, whose online chatbot ChatGPT made waves when it was debuted in December, announced this week that a commercial version of the service, called ChatGPT Plus, would soon be available to users in the United States. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

OpenAI’s widely lauded ChatGPT has successfully passed the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) and an MBA exam administered by Wharton professor Christian Terwiesch. The program’s sophistication and its uncanny ability to detect and replicate the intricacies of human speech have led many in the education sector to wonder whether there is anything ChatGPT can’t do. Will the program, as many have suggested, transform education and render writing curricula obsolete ?

I decided to put the program’s writing skills to the test by evaluating the program’s ability to craft a standout personal statement for a college application. The college application essay is a unique piece of personal writing, intended to highlight a student’s creativity, originality, and compatibility for the particular university, so I thought it would pose an interesting challenge for ChatGPT.

Ultimately, ChatGPT produced an essay in the tone and skill level of an average high school student—complete with common mistakes that many high school students make when it comes to personal narrative writing. While the essay wouldn’t stand out to admissions committees at top schools, it is a fantastic demonstration of where many students go wrong in crafting their personal statements.

Here’s what I asked ChatGPT:

GPT, write a college admission essay as if you were an applicant who wants to pursue musical theater. She is the president of the drama club and a member of the honors society at her school, and she has taken AP Music Theory. The essay should be no more than 600 words in length and respond to the following prompt: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

In response, the program generated the following essay:

My love for musical theater began when I was very young. I remember sitting in the theater with my family, watching in awe as the actors and actresses performed the most beautiful music and dance numbers. The experience was so captivating that I knew at that moment, I wanted to pursue a career in the performing arts.

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I started taking lessons in music theory and performing arts in middle school and joined the school’s drama club in high school. As I continued to hone my craft, I eventually became the president of the drama club and was selected to join the honors society. Participating in these activities not only gave me a sense of purpose and fulfillment, but also allowed me to develop my skills and gain a better understanding of myself and others.

One of my most memorable accomplishments was when I was chosen to take part in a prestigious musical theater production. I had worked so hard for the opportunity, and it was a great honor to be selected for the show. As I began the rehearsals and performances, I was exposed to many different types of people - from different cultures, backgrounds, and beliefs. Working with these individuals on a daily basis was eye-opening, and I learned a lot about myself in the process. I discovered that I was a passionate and driven individual, with an eye for detail and a knack for bringing out the best in others.

My experience with this production also taught me the importance of collaboration and teamwork. As part of a large ensemble, I had to learn the importance of working together in order to create the best product. I was challenged to think outside of the box, to think of creative solutions to any problem that we encountered. It was a very humbling experience, as I had to rely on others to help me reach my goals.

Overall, participating in this production was a major accomplishment that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of myself and others. It taught me the value of hard work and dedication, as well as the importance of collaboration and teamwork. It also taught me that I have the power to make a difference in the world, no matter how small or large my contribution may be. I am confident that this experience will serve me well in my pursuit of a career in musical theater.

So where does ChatGPT’s essay go wrong?

Mistake #1: The essay tells rather than shows.

The golden rule of essays that rely on a student’s personal experiences is to “show—not tell;” the overall essay does not contain any of the storytelling techniques that are critical to a good essay, such as characterization, dialogue, and imagery. It tells the reader the intended takeaway in a bland and overly straightforward manner rather than showing the student’s active reflection and growth through creative, engaging narration. Take, for example, the sentence: “As I began the rehearsals and performances, I was exposed to many different types of people - from different cultures, backgrounds, and beliefs.” A successful essay should have expanded on a specific person or encounter that shaped the student. The student’s open-mindedness, receptivity to growth, and motivation to hone their craft should all be conveyed implicitly in the essay, and not be stated outright.

Mistake #2: The language is vague and impersonal.

In terms of the essay’s stylistic quality, the sentences lack complexity, and the writing is choppy and strange. In an essay of this length, the student should maximize the limited space given rather than fill in the word count with “fluff.” Each sentence should be used to include new information or add valuable detail, but many of these sentences repeat the same basic idea. A stronger essay would have included more specific personal context about the student and should have focused more specifically on why musical theater is the career to which they want to dedicate themselves. There is no critical thinking or deeper analysis presented in this response, and that—combined with the generic, broad statements and impersonal tone—does not make this a strong essay.

Mistake #3: The substance of the essay fails to provide meaningful insight into who the student is.

In the absence of any depth of authorial self-reflection, as a reader, this essay leaves me with plenty of questions—What was it about that initial experience that inspired the student to pursue musical theater? What exactly did they learn about themselves working with people different from them? How did this “prestigious musical” spark growth and understanding? Without elaborating on both their actual experiences and the student’s internal reflection, the essay does not thoughtfully explore the student’s development as a person and instead jumps to a generic takeaway about teamwork.

A great personal essay should be unique and specific to a single individual's life experience and convey the unique contours of a student’s personality and values to an admissions committee. It is colorful, detailed, and charged with narrative momentum. While a great essay paints a vivid picture of the writer’s journey toward a particular realization, it should lead the reader to that realization through vivid storytelling rather than extended explanation.

Mistake #4: The story lacks context.

For this essay in particular, if the applicant wants to write about how attending a musical theater production sparked their interest and led to their personal development, they need to provide far more context and narration. For instance, beginning the essay with an anecdote that speaks to the applicant’s unique life experience or connection to the field would make for a more compelling introduction—many people have seen shows and felt inspired, so what distinguishes this applicant’s experience from others’? A more dynamic essay would capture the reader’s attention through an engaging narrative hook before zooming out to illustrate the importance of the anecdote within its context in the student’s life.

Mistake #5: The writing lacks a distinct voice and unique perspective.

Finally, ChatGPT’s essay lacked one of the most critical components of excellent narrative writing—a distinct voice. Ultimately, ChatGPT had the ability to mimic the tone of an excited high school senior—but that was perhaps the greatest weakness of the essay produced by the program, rather than its greatest strength. The essay sounded like it was written by any excited teenager, with a generic composite of language consistent with students of that age, but it did not convey a unique voice and personality. The essay was superficial—missing the depth, creativity, and dynamic momentum that make great essays stand out to top schools. Standing out to top schools requires students to embrace their quirks rather than downplaying what makes them eccentric, unique, and memorable. A great personal essay is one that no person—or robot—other than the student could have written.

Of course, I could have continued to feed the program more specific information and instruction to adapt the essay to varying degrees and seek to eliminate these mistakes, but doing so would essentially require what it would take to simply write the essay oneself—creativity, the grasp of what constitutes stylistic writing, and a clear message to be conveyed by the essay. Prestigious colleges and universities want to know who an applicant is in their own words —only the applicant can tell their story in a compelling, quirky, and authentic way. While ChatGPT did not produce a stand-out essay, its output should alert students to key mistakes that they should avoid in their own admissions essays and ultimately illustrate to college applicants the power of their own voice.

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A.I. Could Be Great for College Essays

Every year, the artificial intelligence company OpenAI improves its text-writing bot, GPT. And every year, the internet responds with shrieks of woe about the impending end of human-penned prose. This cycle repeated last week when OpenAI launched ChatGPT —a version of GPT that can seemingly spit out any text, from a Mozart-styled piano piece to the history of London in the style of Dr. Seuss . The response on Twitter was unanimous: The college essay is doomed. Why slave over a paper when ChatGPT can write an original for you?

Chatting with ChatGPT is fun. (Go play with it !) But the college essay isn’t doomed, and A.I. like ChatGPT won’t replace flesh and blood writers. They may make writing easier, though.

GPT-3, released by OpenAI in 2020, is the third and best-known version of OpenAI’s Generative Pre-trained Transformer—a computer program known as a large language model. Large language models produce language in response to language—typically, text-based prompts (“Write me a sonnet about love”). Unlike traditional computer programs that execute a series of hard-coded commands, language models are trained by sifting through large datasets of text like Wikipedia. Through this training, they learn patterns in language that are then used to generate the most likely completions to questions or commands.

Language is rife with repetition. Our ability to recognize and remember regularities in speech and text allows us to do things like complete a friend’s sentence or solve a Wordle in three tries. If I asked you to finish the sentence, The ball rolled down the … you’d say hill, and so would GPT-3. Large language models are, like people, great at learning regularities in language, and they use this trick to generate human-like text. But when tested on their ability to understand the language they produce, they often look more like parrots than poets.

Gary Marcus, an emeritus professor at NYU and the author of Rebooting AI , is a vocal critic of the idea that bots like GPT-3 understand what they’re writing . In a recent preprint (an academic paper that hasn’t been peer-reviewed), Marcus and two co-authors used OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 to demonstrate the limitations of large language models. DALL-E 2 , like GPT-3, responds to text-based prompts. But instead of producing language, it creates images. DALL-E 2 was trained to learn associations between images and their captions to produce entirely new images based on the text users enter. If you ask it for, say, “an impressionist painting of Albert Einstein surfing” you get the four images below.

Not bad, right? DALL-E 2 was recently used to win an art competition .

But as Marcus and his co-authors point out in their paper , DALL-E 2 doesn’t understand the relationship between the words that users enter. If, for instance, you ask it to produce an image of “an old man talking to his parents,” you get four images of three people talking. The AI fails to understand that, however old the old man looks, the people he’s talking to must, by definition of being his parents, look older.

Compared with DALL-E 2, ChatGPT appears to have a better grasp of the text users enter and the responses it spits out. This might be why the Internet responded to its release so enthusiastically. ChatGPT “is causing jaws to drop and brows to furrow,” wrote Axios .

I had trouble stumping it with some classic riddles from cognitive psychology. Take the Lily Pad problem:

Prompt: A lily pad, in a pond, doubles in size every day. On the 20 th day, it covers the entire pond. On what day did it cover half the pond?

ChatGPT: A lily pad in a pond that doubles in size every day will cover half the pond on the 19 th day, one day before it covers the entire pond.

The A.I. got that the question described exponential growth—a phenomenon that, as the pandemic demonstrated, many humans fail to understand. But I did fool ChatGPT with the bat and ball problem made famous by Princeton psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow :

Prompt: A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

ChatGPT: If the bat costs $1 more than the ball, and the bat and ball cost $1.10 in total, then the ball must cost $1.10 - $1.00 = $0.10.

The correct answer is 5 cents. (Trust me.)

ChatGPT might fail at tests of reasoning, but it’s great at generating humanlike text to different lengths and in various styles. This brings us back to the college essay—an easy task for ChatGPT, many commentators claimed on Twitter. “We’re witnessing the death of the college essay in realtime,” tweeted one Google employee . Ethan Mollick, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania, had ChatGPT write an essay question , create a grading rubric for said question, answer the question, and grade its own answer. (It got an A minus.) How could the essay not be doomed?

This isn’t the first time that large language models have been predicted to fell the essay or worse. “To spend ten minutes with Sudowrite [a GPT-3-based A.I.] is to recognize that the undergraduate essay, the basic pedagogical mode of all humanities, will soon be under severe pressure,” wrote journalist Stephen Marche in a 2021 New Yorker piece. (On Tuesday, Marche wrote an article for the Atlantic titled “ The College Essay Is Dead .”) And in 2019, when GPT-2 was created, OpenAI withheld it from the public because the “fear of malicious applications” was too high .

If any group were to put an A.I. to malicious use, essay-burdened undergraduates would surely be the first. But the evidence that A.I. is being used to complete university assignments is hard to find. (When I asked my class of 47 students recently about using A.I. for schoolwork, they looked at me like I was mad.) It could be a matter of time and access before A.I. is used more widely by students to cheat; ChatGPT is the first free text-writing bot from OpenAI (although it won’t be free forever). But it could also be that large language models are just not very good at answering the types of questions professors ask.

If you ask ChatGPT to write an essay contrasting socialism and capitalism, it produces what you expect: 28 grammatical sentences covering wealth distribution, poverty reduction, and employment stability under these two economic systems. But few professors ask students to write papers on broad questions like this. Broad questions lead to a rainbow of responses that are impossible to grade objectively. And the more you make the question like something a student might get—narrow, and focused on specific, course-related content—the worse ChatGPT performs.

I gave ChatGPT a question about the relationship between language and colour perception, that I ask my third-year psychology of language class, and it bombed . Not only did its response lack detail, but it attributed a paper I instructed it to describe to an entirely different study. Several more questions produced the same vague and error-riddled results. If one of my students handed in the text ChatGPT generated, they’d get an F.

Large language models generate the most likely responses based on the text they are fed during training, and, for now, that text doesn’t include the reading lists of thousands of college classes. They also prevaricate. The model’s calculation of the most probable text completion is not always the most correct response—or even a true response. When I asked Gary Marcus about the prospect of ChatGPT writing college essays his answer was blunt: “It’s basically a bullshit artist. And bullshitters rarely get As—they get Cs or worse.”

If these problems are fixed—and, based on how these models work, it’s unclear that they can be—I doubt A.I. like ChatGPT will produce good papers. Even humans who write papers for money struggle to do it well. In 2014, a department of the U.K. government published a study of history and English papers produced by online-essay writing services for senior high school students. Most of the papers received a grade of C or lower. Much like the work of ChatGPT, the papers were vague and error-filled. It’s hard to write a good essay when you lack detailed, course-specific knowledge of the content that led to the essay question.

ChatGPT may fail at writing a passable paper, but it’s a useful pedagogical tool that could help students write papers themselves. Ben Thompson, who runs the technology blog and newsletter Stratechery, wrote about this change in a post about ChatGPT and history homework. Thompson asked ChatGPT to complete his daughter’s assignment on the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes; the A.I. produced three error-riddled paragraphs. But, as Thompson points out, failures like this don’t mean that we should trash the tech. In the future, A.I. like ChatGPT can be used in the classroom to generate text that students then fact-check and edit. That is, these bots solve the problem of the blank page by providing a starting point for papers. I couldn’t agree more.

I frequently used ChatGPT while working on this piece. I asked for definitions that, after a fact-check, I included. At times, I threw entire paragraphs from this piece into ChatGPT to see if it produced prettier prose. Sometimes it did, and then I used that text. Why not? Like spell check, a thesaurus, and Wikipedia, ChatGPT made the task of writing a little easier. I hope my students use it.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate , New America , and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

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How to Get ChatGPT to Write an Essay: Prompts, Outlines, & More

Last Updated: June 2, 2024 Fact Checked

Getting ChatGPT to Write the Essay

Using ai to help you write, expert interview.

This article was co-authored by Bryce Warwick, JD and by wikiHow staff writer, Nicole Levine, MFA . Bryce Warwick is currently the President of Warwick Strategies, an organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area offering premium, personalized private tutoring for the GMAT, LSAT and GRE. Bryce has a JD from the George Washington University Law School. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 51,378 times.

Are you curious about using ChatGPT to write an essay? While most instructors have tools that make it easy to detect AI-written essays, there are ways you can use OpenAI's ChatGPT to write papers without worrying about plagiarism or getting caught. In addition to writing essays for you, ChatGPT can also help you come up with topics, write outlines, find sources, check your grammar, and even format your citations. This wikiHow article will teach you the best ways to use ChatGPT to write essays, including helpful example prompts that will generate impressive papers.

Things You Should Know

• To have ChatGPT write an essay, tell it your topic, word count, type of essay, and facts or viewpoints to include.
• ChatGPT is also useful for generating essay topics, writing outlines, and checking grammar.
• Because ChatGPT can make mistakes and trigger AI-detection alarms, it's better to use AI to assist with writing than have it do the writing.

• Before using the OpenAI's ChatGPT to write your essay, make sure you understand your instructor's policies on AI tools. Using ChatGPT may be against the rules, and it's easy for instructors to detect AI-written essays.
• While you can use ChatGPT to write a polished-looking essay, there are drawbacks. Most importantly, ChatGPT cannot verify facts or provide references. This means that essays created by ChatGPT may contain made-up facts and biased content. [1] X Research source It's best to use ChatGPT for inspiration and examples instead of having it write the essay for you.

• The topic you want to write about.
• Essay length, such as word or page count. Whether you're writing an essay for a class, college application, or even a cover letter , you'll want to tell ChatGPT how much to write.
• Other assignment details, such as type of essay (e.g., personal, book report, etc.) and points to mention.
• If you're writing an argumentative or persuasive essay , know the stance you want to take so ChatGPT can argue your point.
• If you have notes on the topic that you want to include, you can also provide those to ChatGPT.
• When you plan an essay, think of a thesis, a topic sentence, a body paragraph, and the examples you expect to present in each paragraph.
• It can be like an outline and not an extensive sentence-by-sentence structure. It should be a good overview of how the points relate.

• "Write a 2000-word college essay that covers different approaches to gun violence prevention in the United States. Include facts about gun laws and give ideas on how to improve them."
• This prompt not only tells ChatGPT the topic, length, and grade level, but also that the essay is personal. ChatGPT will write the essay in the first-person point of view.
• "Write a 4-page college application essay about an obstacle I have overcome. I am applying to the Geography program and want to be a cartographer. The obstacle is that I have dyslexia. Explain that I have always loved maps, and that having dyslexia makes me better at making them."

Tyrone Showers

Be specific when using ChatGPT. Clear and concise prompts outlining your exact needs help ChatGPT tailor its response. Specify the desired outcome (e.g., creative writing, informative summary, functional resume), any length constraints (word or character count), and the preferred emotional tone (formal, humorous, etc.)

• In our essay about gun control, ChatGPT did not mention school shootings. If we want to discuss this topic in the essay, we can use the prompt, "Discuss school shootings in the essay."
• Let's say we review our college entrance essay and realize that we forgot to mention that we grew up without parents. Add to the essay by saying, "Mention that my parents died when I was young."
• In the Israel-Palestine essay, ChatGPT explored two options for peace: A 2-state solution and a bi-state solution. If you'd rather the essay focus on a single option, ask ChatGPT to remove one. For example, "Change my essay so that it focuses on a bi-state solution."

Pay close attention to the content ChatGPT generates. If you use ChatGPT often, you'll start noticing its patterns, like its tendency to begin articles with phrases like "in today's digital world." Once you spot patterns, you can refine your prompts to steer ChatGPT in a better direction and avoid repetitive content.

• "Give me ideas for an essay about the Israel-Palestine conflict."
• "Ideas for a persuasive essay about a current event."
• "Give me a list of argumentative essay topics about COVID-19 for a Political Science 101 class."

• "Create an outline for an argumentative essay called "The Impact of COVID-19 on the Economy."
• "Write an outline for an essay about positive uses of AI chatbots in schools."
• "Create an outline for a short 2-page essay on disinformation in the 2016 election."

• "Find peer-reviewed sources for advances in using MRNA vaccines for cancer."
• "Give me a list of sources from academic journals about Black feminism in the movie Black Panther."
• "Give me sources for an essay on current efforts to ban children's books in US libraries."

• "Write a 4-page college paper about how global warming is changing the automotive industry in the United States."
• "Write a 750-word personal college entrance essay about how my experience with homelessness as a child has made me more resilient."
• You can even refer to the outline you created with ChatGPT, as the AI bot can reference up to 3000 words from the current conversation. For example: "Write a 1000 word argumentative essay called 'The Impact of COVID-19 on the United States Economy' using the outline you provided. Argue that the government should take more action to support businesses affected by the pandemic."

• One way to do this is to paste a list of the sources you've used, including URLs, book titles, authors, pages, publishers, and other details, into ChatGPT along with the instruction "Create an MLA Works Cited page for these sources."
• You can also ask ChatGPT to provide a list of sources, and then build a Works Cited or References page that includes those sources. You can then replace sources you didn't use with the sources you did use.

Expert Q&A

• Because it's easy for teachers, hiring managers, and college admissions offices to spot AI-written essays, it's best to use your ChatGPT-written essay as a guide to write your own essay. Using the structure and ideas from ChatGPT, write an essay in the same format, but using your own words. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Always double-check the facts in your essay, and make sure facts are backed up with legitimate sources. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you see an error that says ChatGPT is at capacity , wait a few moments and try again. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Using ChatGPT to write or assist with your essay may be against your instructor's rules. Make sure you understand the consequences of using ChatGPT to write or assist with your essay. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• ChatGPT-written essays may include factual inaccuracies, outdated information, and inadequate detail. [3] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

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Thanks for reading our article! If you’d like to learn more about completing school assignments, check out our in-depth interview with Bryce Warwick, JD .

• ↑ https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6783457-what-is-chatgpt
• ↑ https://platform.openai.com/examples/default-essay-outline
• ↑ https://www.ipl.org/div/chatgpt/

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How to Use ChatGPT for Writing a Personal Statement

For the past two years since AI tools like ChatGPT became available, concerns have arisen about their potential to be unethical, make students less capable, and facilitate cheating.

However, universities are now recognizing that AI tools can be beneficial when used properly. It’s important to use AI ethically to enhance efficiency and overcome barriers to reaching your full potential.

According to Elliot Newstead , Head of UK Student Recruitment and Outreach at the University of Leicester, AI tools like ChatGPT can be beneficial for students applying to university if used correctly.

In the following section, we’ll explore how to use ChatGPT ethically to assist with writing your personal statement.

Using ChatGPT for Brainstorming

The first way to use ChatGPT is for brainstorming ideas.

When writing a personal statement, you need to create a document that showcases why you are a good fit for a particular degree. It’s essentially a CV for university admissions, highlighting your interests, passion, credentials, and future goals related to the degree.

Start by brainstorming career ideas.

For example, if you’re applying for a psychology degree but are unsure about future career paths, ask ChatGPT:

“ What are some career paths that I can pursue with a degree in Psychology?”

ChatGPT can provide various options such as clinical psychologist, counseling psychologist, health psychologist, school psychologist, social worker and researcher. You can then choose a couple of these paths to focus on in your personal statement.

Another useful feature is to generate a list of key achievements or skills needed for your chosen degree.

For example, if you’re applying for a business management program, ask ChatGPT:

“ List my key achievements and experiences relevant to a business administration program. “

It might suggest skills like leadership, project management, and strategic planning. You could then consider gaining relevant experience, like starting a podcast, to strengthen your application.

Gather Information

An essential part of your personal statement is discussing the subject in depth. Include information that interests you and is relevant, showing your passion and willingness to learn.

For example, if you’re applying for a degree in neuroscience or psychology and have a strong interest in dementia research, you might want to mention a new method, finding, or drug that has caught your attention.

You can use a platform called R Discovery, which has a tool called Ask R Discovery . It searches through the literature and provides you with relevant research findings.

You can ask a question like:

“ What is a recent research finding in dementia research?”

The AI tool will generate a summary and provide literature for further exploration. This can be a great topic to include in your personal statement to demonstrate your genuine interest in the subject to the admissions tutor.

Structuring Your Statement

The next way to use ChatGPT is to structure and generate an outline for your personal statement.

For instance, ask it:

“Create an outline for a personal statement for a computer science degree.”

Include details about your background and experience for a more tailored outline.

Typically, a personal statement should start with a compelling hook, followed by your academic background, achievements, relevant coursework, practical experience, skills, career goals, and a strong conclusion.

You can copy this outline into your document and start writing. This method saves time while ensuring your statement remains original and ethically written.

Writing the Content

ChatGPT can also assist with writing the content of your personal statement.

For example, you might ask it:

“Explain in the first person how my internship at a tech company prepared me for a computer science degree.”

It can help draft strong paragraphs by relating your experience to the course you’re applying for, discussing practical applications, teamwork, and professional development.

Refining and Editing

Once you have a draft, use ChatGPT for refining and editing. For example, you can ask ChatGPT to paraphrase a sentence or simplify a paragraph. It can also help with critical discussion points, such as presenting challenges or opposing arguments related to your experiences.

ChatGPT can also assist with adding recent research references or discovering relevant literature to include in your statement. This can be particularly useful if you want to demonstrate a deeper understanding of your field.

I hope you find this information useful. If so, feel free to share it on your social media and let me know in the comments.

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Using AI tools

How to use ChatGPT in your studies

Translated on February 13, 2023 by Tegan George. Originally published by Tobias Solis

ChatGPT is a chatbot developed by OpenAI in November of 2022. Chatbots are computer programs that simulate human interactions via artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP). ChatGPT has quickly become popular with students due to its ability to help answer many academic questions.

You can use ChatGPT in the following areas of your studies:

• Exam preparation
• Homework assignments
• Getting a simple topic explained
• Academic writing

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Table of contents

Chatgpt for exam preparation, using chatgpt for homework assignments, chatgpt for explaining simple topics, chatgpt for academic writing, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about chatgpt.

You can use ChatGPT to prepare for exams by creating:

• easy-to-understand summaries
• multiple choice questions

How to create easy-to-understand summaries

ChatGPT can help you summarize or paraphrase text in an easy-to-understand way. This can simplify and rephrase complicated topics to help you understand them in layman’s terms.

Simply copy the text into the chat section by section and ask it to summarize/paraphrase.

Alternatively, you can use Scribbr’s free text summarizer  and  Scribbr’s free paraphrasing tool , which are specifically designed for these purposes.

Input: Please summarize the following text in a way that is easy to understand:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Multiple-choice questions

You can use ChatGPT to create multiple-choice questions for your study material. This can help you test your level of knowledge.

To do this, ask ChatGPT to create multiple-choice questions for a block of text.

ChatGPT result: Here is a practice test with 4 multiple-choice questions about A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, along with their answers:

Who is the protagonist in A Tale of Two Cities?

a) Charles Darnay b) Sydney Carton c) Charles Dickens d) Jarvis Lorry

What is the central theme of A Tale of Two Cities?

a) Love b) Redemption c) The French Revolution d) Poverty

Who is the villain in A Tale of Two Cities?

a) Charles Darnay b) Sydney Carton c) Madame Defarge d) Jarvis Lorry

What is the setting of A Tale of Two Cities?

a) England b) France c) America d) Australia

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You can also use ChatGPT to help you with your homework, for topics such as:

• Computer science
• Business administration

To do this, generate first draft solutions for the tasks given to you, and then improve them.

ChatGPT for computer science homework

For example, you can work on tasks from technical courses, such as computer science.

ChatGPT result: Here is one way to write a program in Python to calculate the sum of all numbers from 1 to N:

n = int(input(“Enter a positive integer: “)) sum = 0 for i in range(1, n+1): sum += i print(“The sum of all numbers from 1 to”, n, “is”, sum)

In this program, the user is prompted to enter a positive integer n. The variable sum is initialized to 0 and then we use a for loop to iterate from 1 to n (inclusive), adding each number to the sum. Finally, the result is printed to the screen.

ChatGPT for homework in business administration

You can also request assistance on your coursework related to economics or business administration.

Please solve the following task: The following data is given for planning the ordering policy of a material type in an industrial company:

Planning period: 180 days Total requirement: 30,000 ME Cost price: 30 GE/MU Order cost rate: 200 GE Storage cost rate: 1.50 GE/ME (related to the planning period) Interest rate: 5% (related to the planning period)

Determine the optimal order quantity, the optimal order frequency and storage range as well as the costs resulting from the optimal ordering policy as the sum of order costs and storage costs (including capital commitment costs).*

ChatGPT result:

The optimal order quantity, order frequency, and storage range can be determined using the Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) model. The EOQ model balances the trade-off between ordering costs and holding costs.

Ordering costs are the costs incurred each time an order is placed, and holding costs are the costs associated with holding inventory in stock over the planning period.

The EOQ model is calculated using the following formula:

EOQ = √(2DS/H)

Where: D = Total requirement (30,000 ME) S = Order cost rate (200 GE) H = Holding cost rate (1.5 GE/ME)

Plugging in the values: EOQ = √(2 * 30,000 * 200 / 1.5) = √(12,000,000) = 3464.16 ME

The optimal order quantity is approximately 3464.16 ME.

The order frequency can be calculated as the total requirement divided by the EOQ: Order frequency = Total requirement / EOQ = 30,000 / 3464.16 = 8.68 orders

The optimal order frequency is approximately 8.68 orders.

The storage range can be calculated as the EOQ divided by 2: Storage range = EOQ / 2 = 3464.16 / 2 = 1732.08 ME

The optimal storage range is approximately 1732.08 ME.

The costs resulting from the optimal ordering policy can be calculated as the sum of the order costs and holding costs.

Order costs = Order frequency * Order cost rate = 8.68 * 200 = 1736 GE Holding costs = (EOQ / 2) * Holding cost rate * planning period = (3464.16 / 2) * 1.5 * 180 = 126,601.76 GE Capital commitment costs = (EOQ / 2) * Interest rate * Cost price = (3464.16 / 2) * 0.05 * 30 = 523.25 GE Total costs = Order costs + Holding costs + Capital commitment costs = 1736 + 126,601.76 + 523.25 = 127,861.01 GE

*This task was taken from a document published by Prof. Dr. Kay Blaufus.

Note that ChatGPT sometimes makes mistakes, and it is always best to double-check if something it presents to you is correct.

You can get explanations on simple or definitional topics from your studies from ChatGPT as well.

Input: chemistry What are the main concepts of thermodynamics and their applications?

Input: English What is a phrasal verb and how is it used?

Input: history How has European colonial rule evolved throughout history?

Input: computer science How do operating systems work and what are their main uses?

Input: philosophy What are the most important concepts in the history of philosophy and how are they relevant in today’s world?

Input: psychology What is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and how is it used?

You can also use ChatGPT to help you organize your academic essays and theses or dissertations . It can help to optimize your writing process in the following areas:

• development of your research question
• creating your research paper outline
• generating ideas for your literature review
• providing suggestions for rewriting or revising your text
• providing feedback on your writing
• proofreading your writing for spelling or grammar errors (you can also use a more specialized tool like Scribbr’s free grammar checker )

To learn more about how to use AI tools effectively, see our AI writing resources page.

If you want more tips on using AI tools , understanding plagiarism , and citing sources , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations, examples, and formats.

• Citing ChatGPT
• Best grammar checker
• Best paraphrasing tool
• ChatGPT in your studies
• Deep learning
• Types of plagiarism
• Self-plagiarism
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Academic integrity
• Best plagiarism checker

Citing sources

• Citation styles
• In-text citation
• Citation examples
• Annotated bibliography

You should not trust ChatGPT’s results unconditionally. While you can use ChatGPT during your studies to clarify questions, you should always double-check the answers you receive against other credible sources , as it doesn’t always give correct information. Don’t cite ChatGPT as a source of factual information.

Yes, ChatGPT is able to create code in different programming languages like Python, Java and C++.

There are several ways you can use ChatGPT in your studies , such as if programming is part of your bachelor’s or master’s degree.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

George, T. (2023, February 13). How to use ChatGPT in your studies. Scribbr. Retrieved August 30, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/ai-tools/using-chatgpt-in-your-studies/

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Another Disastrous Year of ChatGPT School Is Beginning

Instructors across the country still seem to have no clue how to handle the technology.

This is Atlantic Intelligence, a newsletter in which our writers help you wrap your mind around artificial intelligence and a new machine age. Sign up here.

Year three of AI college is about to begin, and instructors across the country still seem to have no clue how to handle the technology: no good way to stop students from using ChatGPT to write essays, and no clear way to instruct students on how AI might enhance their work. Meanwhile, more and more teachers seem to be turning to large language models to help them grade and give feedback. “If the first year of AI college ended in a feeling of dismay, the situation has now devolved into absurdism,” my colleague Ian Bogost wrote in a recent story for The Atlantic . One writing professor Ian spoke with said that AI had ruined the trust he once had in his students and that he’s ready to quit the profession altogether. “I have loved my time in the classroom, but with ChatGPT, everything feels pointless,” he said.

The way forward, Ian suggests, might be not in trying to patch up the flaws AI is exposing, but in reimagining teaching and learning in higher education. I recently touched base with Ian, who is himself a professor of media studies and computer science at Washington University, to follow up on his story. Even before generative AI, many of the types of papers that college courses assign seemed pointless, he told me—instructors ask students to write “a bad version of the specialized kind of written output scholars produce.”

Perhaps, then, universities ought to try a different form of instruction: assignments that are more creative and open-ended, with a more concrete link to the world outside academia. Students “might be told to write a paragraph of lively prose, for example, or a clear observation about something they see,” Ian wrote in his story, “or some lines that transform a personal experience into a general idea.” Maybe, in the very long term, the shock of generative AI will actually help higher education blossom.

AI Cheating Is Getting Worse

By Ian Bogost

Kyle Jensen, the director of Arizona State University’s writing programs, is gearing up for the fall semester. The responsibility is enormous: Each year, 23,000 students take writing courses under his oversight. The teachers’ work is even harder today than it was a few years ago, thanks to AI tools that can generate competent college papers in a matter of seconds. A mere week after ChatGPT appeared in November 2022, The Atlantic declared that “ The College Essay Is Dead .” Two school years later, Jensen is done with mourning and ready to move on. The tall, affable English professor co-runs a National Endowment for the Humanities–funded project on generative-AI literacy for humanities instructors, and he has been incorporating large language models into ASU’s English courses. Jensen is one of a new breed of faculty who want to embrace generative AI even as they also seek to control its temptations. He believes strongly in the value of traditional writing but also in the potential of AI to facilitate education in a new way—in ASU’s case, one that improves access to higher education.

Read the full article.

What to Read Next

• ChatGPT will end high-school English : Just after ChatGPT emerged nearly two years ago, Daniel Herman foresaw these very problems. “The arrival of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a program that generates sophisticated text in response to any prompt you can imagine, may signal the end of writing assignments altogether,” he wrote in an article for The Atlantic .
• Neal Stephenson’s most stunning prediction : Tech luminaries have long predicted that computer programs could act as personal tutors—but today’s generative AI isn’t up to the task. “We’ve already seen examples of lawyers who use ChatGPT to create legal documents, and the AI just fabricated past cases and precedents that seemed completely plausible,” the science-fiction author Neal Stephenson told me in February. “When you think about the idea of trying to make use of these models in education, this becomes a bug too.”

August may be ending, but in many parts of the United States, it feels like the summer heat never will. (Perhaps you saw articles this week about “ corn sweat .”) It may be time to consider a neck fan. “The longer I wear my neck fan, the easier it is to imagine a future in which neck fans are as much part of the summer as sunglasses and flip-flops,” Saahil Desai wrote in a story on the new gadgets earlier this month.

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