The text from the Silicon Valley founder arrived around 10 a.m. on November 1st. She had hired me as an essay coach to help her niece with early decision essays to an Ivy League school. And now she was angry. The essays “just weren’t good enough.” My stomach dropped. These essays were due in a matter of hours. When I pressed for more specific feedback, she huffed that there was no time to explain and she was going into the document to complete an edit herself.
It was quite an edit. I watched in real time as she copied and pasted obviously AI-generated text and added new flattering details and activities that her niece had never mentioned to me in the hours I had spent getting to know her and helping her plan her writing. After two decades as an English teacher and college essay consultant, I had seen some breathtaking levels of adult overinvolvement in a student’s education. But this was unprecedented, especially when she texted me that her “edit” was complete and could I please “help change the AI language back into [her niece’s] writing voice.”
I refused and pointed out that submitting an essay with such obvious AI, and, perhaps, embellishments, was as damaging to the student’s application as it was harmful to her self-esteem. The aunt and the student promptly cut off all contact. I have no idea what that application looked like when the poor girl finally hit submit. But I am 100 percent certain it was dead on arrival.
I sometimes wonder if colleges will get rid of the application essay, given how much AI slop admissions personnel have to wade through nowadays. Contrary to what some AI cheerleaders will have you believe, it’s not that hard to sniff out AI-generated essays if you’re a veteran high school teacher or admissions officer; it’s a distinctly terrible smell. And the data backs this up: a November 2025 Cornell study on a type of AI called Large Language Models, or LLMs, concluded that “when given the same writing task as humans, LLMs produce text that is separable from human-generated text visually, predictably, and in pairwise comparisons; influencing the model through demographic information [including feeding the AI a student’s writing samples and prompting it to mimic the diction, syntax, and style]…did not appear to make the writing more human-like.” In other words, it’s easy for us to tell, even if a student thinks they’re covering their tracks.
But here is a somewhat well-kept secret: the AI academic honesty crisis has created an opportunity. By some estimates, 30 percent of college applicants now use AI to write their essays. Which means students who write original, sincere essays can give themselves an unprecedented edge on the essay portion of the application.
Here are some tips for students who are writing their application essays this fall:
Don’t use AI when writing your application essay. At all.
I reached out to University of California admissions to see what advice they had for students considering using AI in their applications. They replied with a statement: “[G]enerative artificial intelligence may serve a useful purpose as a limited tool for prospective students to brainstorm and outline their original submissions for the Personal Identifying Questions (PIQs), but it should be used with care…[An] AI response may be flagged as plagiarism.”
Virtually every college in the world has a similar approach, and here’s what should terrify any student considering using AI: unlike school, where a teacher has to catch you and make a case that you used AI, an admissions officer doesn’t have to prove it. They can just dismiss your essay based on a feeling they get when reading it. Even if you only use AI to generate ideas or an outline, the risks of overusing it outweigh the benefits. Vibes alone can mean your essay is ignored or even counted as a negative in your application.
Build relationships with teachers in subjects you’re passionate about.
Teachers are human too, and a lot of them fall into the trap of using AI to write their recommendation letters. AI-generated letters of recommendation are even easier to spot than AI-generated student essays. Colleges certainly are more forgiving when AI content shows up in an overworked teacher’s letter of recommendation. But a sincere, unique, non-AI letter of recommendation can make your application stand out now more than ever. Ask your teachers if and how they will use AI to write your letter; you have a right to know.
Don’t have an adult over-edit your work.
We live in an era where wealthy parents pay college consultants $100,000 to help their student (hopefully) gain admission to a highly selective university. In this atmosphere of fear and competition, ethics can go out the window pretty quickly. So too can your chances with a school if they sense that somebody stage-mom’d your essay into existence. It’s fine to hire a consultant to assist in the college process. But parents, students, and the consultant need to be in agreement: the essay has to be the original work of the student.
You don’t need money to find a good essay coach. Many consultants take pro bono clients, while most high school college and career centers provide excellent workshops and resources to guide the writing process. If you are lucky, you can find a teacher or counselor willing to spend some time with you and your essays. Parents also can provide support, although it’s often preferable to find a friend or acquaintance outside the family who isn’t so emotionally invested.
The good news: A “perfect” essay is now a liability. An essay with a clunky phrase or underdeveloped idea here or there is now an asset. Use spelling and grammar check and have someone talk through, edit, and proofread your essay. But relax! As long as your voice, observations, and ideas are your own, you’re giving your application an edge. Let other students (or their consultants and AIs) do their best bad Malcolm Gladwell Blink first impression or try to reverse engineer authenticity. Just be yourself.
Start early.
It’s much more tempting to let AI or an adult write your essay if you are under time constraints. I’ve had the pleasure of helping some students develop their voice and powers of observation gradually from freshman year all the way through college applications, but you can start preparing for application essays your junior year and follow a low-stress, successful path.
Here are some activities I recommend to the students I teach and coach:
Practice thinking.
This sounds obvious, but it’s never been harder for students to find opportunities to think. Novelist and essayist David Foster Wallace defined learning how to think as “being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.” Do not let algorithms choose what you pay attention to. Stay off social media. Put your phone down and notice the world around you. Take back control of your mind. You can do this anywhere, anytime, at any age.
Keep a journal.
Writing is thinking. Every time you write, you give yourself an opportunity to focus your attention on some aspect of yourself and the world around you, then construct ideas through that focus. Journal writing is powerful because it allows you to stop, catch your breath, and process complex experiences, feelings, and concepts. Set aside at least 15 minutes a day to write in your journal. Write on paper, not a device.
Write practice essays.
It always surprises me that students and parents obsess over college applications, yet applicants have very limited exposure to the personal essay, especially junior and senior year when Advanced Placement academic writing dominates the English curriculum. Educate yourself on the personal essay genre. There are some great books out there by people like Phillip Lopate that include guidance and sample essays. Take journal entries and expand them. Write short stories for fun – personal essays and fiction require a lot of overlapping skills.
Build a healthy routine.
Set aside 30 minutes every night before bed. Put away all connected devices. Write in your paper journal for 10-15 minutes, then use the rest of the time to read on paper or a non-networked, non-backlit device like a Kindle paperwhite. NEVER read on your phone, iPad, or computer before bed. Bonus: You’ll get the best sleep you’ve had since your parents made the mistake of putting an iPad in front of you.
Read for pleasure.
Read a magazine or newspaper, flipping through all the different sections. Choose random articles that you wouldn’t know existed if you just relied on a newsfeed or social media algorithm. Read novels (graphic novels count) and nonfiction books. Let interesting characters, situations, and ideas lead you wherever they may. Read, read, read.
Pursue your passions and stay curious.
Overscheduling makes you a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. And that is bad news when it comes to personal essay writing. Choose how you spend your time thoughtfully, and try to find 1-2 extracurricular activities that you genuinely like. If you can consistently engage in a fun, challenging experience for 2-3 hours at a time without looking at your phone, you have found something worth doing and worth writing about.
I’ll leave you with an important observation: The rich aunt who used AI to write her niece’s essays was an anomaly. Out of all my clients, the Silicon Valley parents who made their money in tech tend to make the greatest effort to minimize their children’s screen time and maximize analog experiences and education. People are starting to catch on. A recent New York Times opinion piece went so far as to question if “thinking has become a luxury good.”
It doesn’t have to be.
Jonah Steinhart is a teacher, writer and the founder of marinwriting.com.
