Brown recently announced the removal of two very-short-answer supplemental essays from its application for its upcoming admissions cycle: “In one sentence, Why Brown?” and “What three words best describe you?”Artificial intelligence was not cited as a reason behind this change, although its use in the college application process has been upending the world of higher education. In September, Forbes reported that 30% of college applicants used AI for help in drafting their supplemental essays. Brown in policy prohibits the use of AI to generate content for essays, but the reality is, the University has no real way to restrict its use.
To mitigate AI’s negative effects on the application process, Brown needs to change what it demands of applicants in the supplemental essays section. Associate Provost for Enrollment and Dean of Undergraduate Admission Logan Powell told The Herald, “What we really value more than anything in this application process is authenticity.” But it’s hard to find authenticity in essays that can easily be written by LLMs. By introducing more short-answer questions — rather than taking them away — Brown can shift its focus from how applicants write to what it is they choose to say. As it is, the University asks prospective first-year students to write between 500 and 800 words across four questions. Instead, Brown should give students the opportunity to write the same amount by answering several pointed, short-answer questions.
College applications, and the supplemental essays in particular, have always exacerbated social inequity. Every year, high schoolers whose families have the means to hire college advisors have their essays expertly fashioned into portraits of the perfect applicants. Now, we live in a world where robots can be better at writing than $1,000 college counselors. In some ways, this is a great equalizer — more applicants have access to resources to assist in the essay writing process. But it also makes it clearer than ever that an applicant’s diction isn’t necessarily a reliable reflection of who they are.
While AI might be able to permeate the writing process, it still can’t replace human ideas or experiences. Applicants can, and likely will, still use AI on short answer questions, but short answers force applicants to make difficult choices about what they present to admissions officers. The brevity of these questions forces both applicants and readers to consider the substance of answers more than style, which can be thoroughly mediated by AI.
This is not to say quality of writing and longer-form prose should be de-emphasized at Brown as a whole. Being able to concisely articulate thoughts on paper is an important skill and one that Brown recognizes. Once they get here, students are required to take at least two writing-intensive courses, and the University has a dedicated Writing Center to help students with the writing process. We don’t need to fixate on applicants’ ability to generate perfect prose — Brown will make writers of them yet. While they are still applying, all we need to know is who they are.
The shorter questions would have the same spirit as Brown’s current ones, just in a condensed format: “In one sentence, what brings you joy?” or “In two sentences, how would you approach the Open Curriculum?” By drastically cutting the word count, these questions eliminate the literary fluff and frills of longer essays and let an applicant cut straight to the chase.. They could even offer follow ups — “Explain your response to the previous question in 40 words” — so that these shorter questions don’t sacrifice the complexity of the current essays.
A student applying to Brown may still ask AI for help answering a question about what brings them joy, but they will have to be very specific about choosing which source of happiness is worth mentioning when space is so limited. This choice, and what it reveals, is ultimately the purpose of supplemental essays anyway: getting to know an applicant beyond the statistics and metrics of an application. Effectively, this limits AI to the purpose of a thesaurus — it’s just a tool to explore different ways of conveying an idea, but the idea itself has to shine brighter. All that fits on the page is what someone finds important enough to include in their 20-word answer, and AI can’t make that choice for them.
This isn’t to say that applicants won’t have the opportunity to express themselves in a more in-depth manner. The widespread use of the Common Application and personal statement already provide a space for students to delve into rich personal narratives. In crafting their personal statement, applicants have a whole 650 words to describe the essence of who they are in as much detail as they can muster. It’s a better place for those who crave literary expression to shine than the slightly awkward length of a 250-word essay.
Maya Tkachenko ’29 can be reached at maya_tkachenko@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
