Welcome! Today we will discuss a trend that has emerged in the recent news - AI.
While AI had a record year in 2023, many did not necessarily believe that AI would also have an impact in the college admissions game.
But now, some colleges and universities are being more open with applicants that AI is used in the admissions process. According to Intelligent, an online magazine focused on higher education, approximately 50% of all colleges and universities use AI.
Of those that do, 87% “sometimes” or “always” use AI to make final decisions in their admissions process.
And the number of colleges and universities using AI is only expected to grow over the next few years.
This has given many parents and applicants some anxiety about the process. Does this mean AI is replacing humans? Will applications become all about algorithms?
While the future is a little murkier, there are some key components to consider.
First, understand that AI being a part of the admissions process is a tad misleading. As it stands, no one is currently using AI to make decisions with no human input. Instead, AI is being used to automate tasks that create capacity for human officers.
For example, if there are, say, 60,000 applicants for approximately 10,000 spots in a given admissions class, some percentage of that 60,000 will automatically not make the cut. This may be a GPA or SAT minimum that can be used to immediately remove applicants from the pool who will not be accepted.
Secondly, admissions has already used some algorithms for years. Simple tasks like sorting applications to specific readers or scraping data most relevant for admissions department (e.g., Math and science courses for admissions into a school of computer science) are things that have existed for the last decade. AI is simply automating these processes.
Third, AI is being used to create additional freedom for human admissions officers.
That means that humans are still driving the process, AI is simply being used as a tool to help make admissions more efficient, especially as they battle greater application volumes.
So what does this really mean?
At this point, not a lot. No one is really reevaluating the entire process, now that AI is more readily available.
The person who is most impacted are those on the margin - those who are non-competitive applicants will not even get reviewed by an admissions officer.
Our guess is that this will rely predominately on some form of academic index - where the quantitative aspects of an applicant’s profile are condensed into a score and anyone below the score will receive an automatic rejection.
That would make college selection much more important. Understanding where you are competitive would be the difference in entering the actual application pool and being automatically rejected from it by AI tools.