Jerry Saltz - the Senior Art Critic for New York Magazine - says we should think of art as a verb. Art is about doing. The action of making art or performing helps define you. Art is your active voice and vision delivered to the world. At Creative Kid College Coach, we believe that successful college applicants are able to articulate their singular artistic goals while showing evidence of multidisciplinary skills. These motivated students apply and are accepted at high rates to schools that are right for them – where they will be successful. Would a Chatbot have helped to increase their chances for admission?

Today, students, parents, and school admissions directors are wondering how Generative AI Chatbots will affect the college application process. Will it make a student’s writing or essays seem more intelligent? Is it cheating if a student uses a Chatbot to write an essay? Should there be policies and rules? Even so, will these rules be followed?

While all this is important, it misses a crucial point. Chatbots don’t know you! Chatbots don’t know your intentions or the context of your experiences. They don’t know the future that you want to create for yourself.

Generative AI – in the form of conversational Chatbots like ChatGBT, Bing, or Bard – is really good at summarizing large sets of data by identifying common features and patterns. They predict the next word in a string of words based on accessing large sets of training data. The output can seem informative and sometimes even persuasive. But Chatbots aren’t “intelligent.” They don’t understand context, fact from fiction. They don’t know how to assess a person’s actions. Because they are often summarizing sets of conflicting data, AI systems may inadvertently generate content that is misleading or even deceptive. AI Chatbots know nothing about you, your art, your friends, or your family other than what you’ve entered into a chatbot dialogue box.

Many visual and performing art schools include essays driven by specific prompts. These prompts often contain phrases such as: “Imagine how your studies and experiences will contribute to your success…” or “Describe how you would be successful in our diverse community,” etc. We always encourage students to write about why a certain school is specifically right for them. And then, there is the usually required artist’s statement. Each one is unique – tied to what or who influences your creative choices. The only way your written word will rise above an average word salad and get noticed is to reach inside yourself, find the emotions and ideas that motivate you, and articulate them well. This is not what Chatbots are good at. Chatbots are good at summarizing around an average – and in our eyes, this leads to a failure to distinguish you from other applicants.

Even with this in mind, Chatbots may have a role in your college admissions journey. We’ve already pointed out that Chatbots are built on summarizing data. Organizing college tours can be a challenge. Ask a chatbot about school open tour dates and build a list of dates for you. Find out about financial aid and metrics. Gather data about how to qualify for scholarships or loans. Make a list of timelines for school applications. All good Chatbot chores. But recognize that not one of these tasks assumes that AI Chatbots know anything important about you.

Is the use of Chatbots for essays or answering prompts unethical? Does it break the rules? We’ll leave that up to college admissions departments. But if you’re trying to create your best chance to rise above a large number of applicants to any school these days – trust yourself and your individuality. Colleges want students who understand why they’ll be successful at their school and can articulate a clear mission in their own voice.