Study abroad application documents are a threshold faced by every student who desires to study abroad. In recent years, with the rapid development of artificial intelligence ChatGPT, "literates can write articles, and martial arts can correct bugs." AI writing for study abroad documents has gradually become a trend. Many people say that application documents are saved! However, is this trend actually beneficial? Perhaps we should be wary of this phenomenon.
Applications for admission in the fall of 2024 are around the corner. Have prospective international students who are still thinking about writing essays also longed for the following scenarios? Knock on the keyboard, enter a few sentences of instructions, click send, and within ten seconds, a eloquent application document is done. However, is it really reliable to use ChatGPT to write documents?
In some countries and regions, using AI to write study abroad documents is considered a form of academic misconduct. This behavior not only violates the principle of academic integrity, but may also result in applicants being refused admission to the school or having their admission qualifications revoked.
On August 29, London Met Uni stated in an email to its partners: “We are aware that artificial intelligence technology has been used to generate personal statements (Personal Statements, i.e. documents). Please note that the university does not Accept any personal statement generated by artificial intelligence.
In addition to violating academic ethics, the quality of documents written by AI is also difficult to pass and frequently overturns. Let’s experience it through two real cases:
Full of "nonsense literature" and lackluster writing
Question 1：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.
Translation: Knowing what you know now, how does the University of Chicago meet your expectations for a learning climate, community, and the future? Please be specific about your own aspirations and how they relate to the University of Chicago.
ChatGPT Creation⬇️
Format aside, the content of this document is overwhelming! The whole article is a repetition of the questions we entered in Chelulumian. There is no innovation, the writing is dull, and it lacks recognition. It feels like "it seems to say something, but it seems like it doesn't say anything." It does not express the feelings about Chicago. The real feeling of college.
"Template traces" are serious and there is no soul at first glance
Question 2：You are on an expedition to found a colony on Mars, when from a nearby crater, a group of Martians suddenly emerges. They seem eager to communicate, but they're the impatient kind and demand you represent the human race in one song, image, memory, proof, or other idea. What do you share with them to show that humanity is worth their time?
Translation: You are exploring a colony on Mars when suddenly a group of Martians emerge from a nearby crater. They seem eager to communicate, but they have little patience for asking you to represent humanity with a song, a picture, a memory, a testimonial, or some other idea. What would you share with them to show that humans are worth their time?
ChatGPT Creation⬇️
Although the language of this application document is fluent, the writing is very "template traces", especially the Personal Statement required by the regular Question, which does not reflect any personal characteristics and distinctive memory points. After the name is blocked, it can be anyone. Writing, what we call “cookie cutter,” Common App Chairman and CEO Jenny Rickard once said:
I’ve read many moving essays that reveal applicants’ intimate experiences and unique perspectives, conveying their inner voices. ChatGPT's documentation obviously cannot do this.
It can be seen from this that it is basically a "delusion" to rely on AI to write an outstanding essay, and it is very likely that AI will overturn the essay!
Because AI does not have subjective initiative, all information sources are only known data on the Internet. What admissions officers want to see is not the "cold" words about the school that can be obtained through a Google search, but how you, a "live" person, can show in a few hundred words that you are the "best match" for the school. "Best Applicant".
Can major schools tell that it’s AI ghostwriting?
Currently, it is difficult for AI-generated documents to escape detection by the school application system!
Since April this year, major universities in Europe and the United States have begun to launch AI detection tools. I would like to remind students not to take chances. Many international students have revealed that their papers were judged by Turnitin to be generated by AI, resulting in failure!
Turnitin
Turnitin is currently the most widely used tool. It can automatically compare the similarity of text submitted by students with other literature on the Internet to discover similar or plagiarized content.
If the text contains content generated from an AI tool, Turnitin will match it to known sources, indicate similarities in the text, and report accordingly.
ZeroGPT
Edward Tian, a Chinese computer science student at Princeton University, used his vacation time to develop GPTZero, which can quickly and effectively detect whether an article is machine-generated or manually written.
Writer
Writer is an intelligent writing aid that can not only help students improve the quality of their writing, increase the accuracy and credibility of their documents, but also detect the originality of the text.
DetectGPT model
Stanford University studied a model called DetectGPT, which can detect whether an entire paragraph was generated by a given large language model (LLM).
All in all, compared to AI, the most reliable one is still humans! AI can indeed bring a lot of convenience and help in the application writing process, but what really makes a study abroad essay stand out is the applicant’s thinking and uniqueness!
However, writing an excellent study abroad application essay is not easy. It requires the applicant to fully demonstrate his or her strengths, experiences, and achievements in the essay, and at the same time, there must be specific examples to support the argument and impress the admissions officer. In addition, application documents for different universities need to comply with specific formats and requirements, including word limit, content structure, etc. For many students, these requirements can be confusing and challenging.
Therefore, students who have time and certain financial conditions can consider using a professional team to write their essays. They can help applicants dig into their own strengths and characteristics and skillfully integrate them into their application essays. In addition, they can also tailor personalized application plans based on the specific circumstances of the applicant and provide targeted advice and guidance. By cooperating with a professional team, the quality and competitiveness of application documents can be greatly improved!