Does Chat GPT Mean the End of the College Essay?
Even reading that title probably made your stomach drop a little. At the very least it piqued your interest and got you wondering what I had to say next. Most conversations regarding AI in general, and Chat GPT in particular, are riddled with anxiety and fear. If a computer can write a pretty good essay, then what’s the point of any of this college essay madness?
The key to understanding why Chat GPT poses no actual threat to the personal statement college essay is understanding what the actual point of the personal statement is. The instructions for the Common App essay read, “What do you want the readers of your application to know about you apart from courses, grades, and test scores? Then choose the option that best helps you answer that question.” It doesn’t ask what’s the most interesting thing you’ve ever done. None of the prompts do. The essay’s entire purpose is to discover a student’s positive characteristics that the reader might not have learned anywhere else in the application package. As smart as Chat GPT may be, it is certainly no expert in this regard.
Writing a reflective personal statement is hard for many students. Some are so used to identifying themselves by the things they’ve accomplished that it's difficult to think about who they are beyond that. Why they’re telling the story and what it illuminates about them is more important than what they're writing about. My job as a writing coach is to help students understand what a college essay is and how it fits into the broader application package. The key to this is making sure they actually understand the prompt. College personal statements are not English class writing assignments asking students to analyze the use of color symbolism in the Great Gatsby. Instead, they are an exercise in understanding the prompt, understanding what they’re writing, and why it matters. By doing my job correctly, any temptation to use Chat GPT is eliminated.
I believe that the student is the expert on their own life and one of my purposes as their essay coach is to help them feel empowered to share a piece of it. Using the Wow method’s streamlined technique takes the fear out of college essay writing. The ten-step process focuses heavily on content, the first 6 steps to be exact. Brainstorming for the personal statement involves linking a prompt, one or two positive characteristics, and some kind of anchor story. In these 6 content-driven steps, the student is the expert, with the focus on what happened and why it matters. What Chat GPT has got wrong is that it focuses on the things that college admissions officers describe as college essay fallacies. The truth is that a hook is not necessary; a unique topic is not necessary. These red herrings only distract from what is important: the Why it Matters part of the essay.
My entire focus, as a Wow-certified writing coach, is creating a safe, nurturing space where students can feel the difference between accomplishments and characteristics. If students can learn who they are beyond what they’ve achieved, there is an opportunity for the kind of authentic growth that will help them as they move forward in life. No matter how intelligent Chat GPT becomes, this is simply not something it can ever offer to students.
To learn more about the Wow method, check us out at https://www.theaspiregroup.com/writing-coach. If you’d like to know more about our writing coach packages for the 2023-2024 school year, please reach out to Steph Degodny at steph@theaspiregroup.com.
