With the release of another survey focusing on the impact of AI on the college admissions process we thought it would be a good time to update our views on how AI is changing the process for applicants. Currently, AI is commonly involved in many parts of the admissions process including the reviewing of essays, transcripts and letters of recommendation as well as predictive analytics.
Many families are curious about the impact of AI on their students' applications. It is important to understand that AI can function as chatbots assisting website visitors with inquiries, while also marking the advancement of technology in the admissions process by effectively increasing the utilization of big data, algorithms, and predictive analytics in the process. In this sense, AI represents a progression in evaluating students based on various criteria which extend beyond grades and test scores. Much of these criteria may be undisclosed to the applicant and are instrumental in the predictive analytics employed by colleges to assess an applicant's likelihood of acceptance, thereby influencing the decision-making procedures around applicants in admissions offices. An example of AI's usage in evaluating students based on unconventional criteria is RoBERTa, an AI tool created by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Colorado Boulder, which assesses the personality traits of candidates through their essays. It is noteworthy that various other institutions, such as Georgia Tech, have also experimented with AI in their admissions processes, while NYU and other schools utilize AI-powered software to gauge a student's probability of enrollment. Loyola Chicago acknowledges AI as providing "innovative methods to analyze a wider range of data points, including essays, recommendation letters, and extracurricular activities, in addition to conventional metrics."
AI playing a role in determining and re-weighting the attributes that colleges want their applicants to possess is generally a source of concern for families due to a lack of transparency. Higher Ed Dive recently surveyed 150 higher ed leaders from across the country regarding AI and the results again point to the importance of knowing how AI may be impacting the process at an individual college level. In the survey, 65% of respondents mentioned that their institution viewed leveraging AI for admissions and enrollment to be ‘mission critical’ or ‘very important’. 41% of respondents believed it was essential that their school applied predictive AI to their admissions process. In brief, the use and impact of AI is likely to continue to grow.
AI not just allows Loyola Chicago to investigate alternative methods of analyzing data beyond grades and scores, but it also grants admissions officers more time to assess applications. We are of the opinion that this additional time enables admissions officers to focus more on the more labor-intensive aspects of the application, like essays. With the recent changes in admissions policies concerning Affirmative Action, we think that essays may be gaining focus and significance.
While we work to have a good understanding of which colleges work with which vendors and consultants and what it might mean to their process and use of AI. It is important to note that families can look for key words and visit college websites to learn what traits schools may value. There are also customer lists and testimonials that can point to what schools may be looking at on the websites of their software vendors. We believe AI will make qualitative factors more important in the admissions process at many schools. Finally, what holds true for the predicative models today, still holds true in AI driven models... which may make interaction and communication between applicants and colleges more important. Our belief is that a little effort to understand less obvious admissions factors can pay real dividends.
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