Using AI for university entrance
Many Year 12 students will spend the summer holiday considering university: what they might study and where they might apply. All UK university applications go through the UCAS Hub and artificial intelligence has added a new layers of complexity to the administrative process of applying for a university course.
As anyone who has ever been involved with the UCAS procedure knows, many prospective students will upload a Personal Statement that has been written during a collaborative process. This short piece of writing (4,000 characters) explains a student's interest in their chosen course and the personal qualities that they bring to undergraduate study. Now that university interviews are rarities, the PS carries considerable weight in applications for highly competitive, oversubscribed courses and so students often request feedback from parents, caregivers, family friends, school teachers and sixth form tutors. Most schools have a member of staff in charge of UCAS admissions and there are, inevitably, online companies offering Personal Statement writing services for UK and overseas students.
Since 2020 and the introduction of GPT-3 as an AI large language model capable of undertaking many regular writing tasks, UCAS has needed to adapt to applications created using computer systems that operate like human intelligence. And this is, of course, hugely ironic in the context of applications to study at degree level because it is genuinely hard to know whether students using AI for their UCAS applications are demonstrating digital ingenuity or ducking the hard work of writing for themselves.
UCAS has evolved to meet these circumstances and its Personal Statement page now includes useful and balanced advice on the role of AI in applications. This advice addresses the question of whether using this digital tool is 'cheating' or 'crafting' and UCAS makes it clear that 'When you complete your application, you now have to declare that your personal statement hasn't been copied or provided from another source, including artificial intelligence software.' It also explains the consequences for prospective students if their personal statement is found to have been written by wholly artificial means. The page then explains how AI can be used appropriately and lists some Dos and Don'ts for students.
This advice is expressed in a clear, kind tone and I am impressed by the approach that UCAS has taken. This is, of course, a fantastically difficult area for the organisation to police but UCAS is demonstrating a nuanced approach to AI that provides a model for other educational institutions. More practically, it also offers both practical and moral guidance for all those involved in university applications between now and the UCAS closing date of 29th January 2024.