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To the Class of 2027 students and their families,
College essay coach and parent of a senior here, in downright disbelief that someday way in the future has suddenly become right now, when I could swear my kid was only born like a minute ago.
As we all prepare to white-knuckle our way into college application season, I’d just like to say, as a parent, *!@#$%!&#!*&!@#$*&^!!! What in the actual *#$%<!?!?!?!
As an essay coach, however, I would like to offer some brief words about the personal statements you’re now crafting (or at least thinking about potentially at some point soon(ish) crafting).
Here’s what I want you to know: a) You still have time to do this well – that’s why I’m writing this now; b) Your story’s already in you; and c) I don’t want AI bullying you into thinking it can tell it better. Because it cannot.
I’m going to tell you now about a very specific, seldom-discussed reason not to use AI in writing your personal statement. Of all the many reasons, it is my favorite. And as a nod to your upcoming assignment, I will keep my point to 650 words or less.
First, we need to buckle ourselves into the Winchester wayback machine (*not an actual time travel apparatus) and plug in 2023, the year you started high school.
Masks were out. Barbie was in. The pandemic had officially “ended.” And AI was strutting onto the scene in a low-cut V-neck and an unapologetic swagger, saying, “Heyyyyy, everyone, eyes on me.”
You know the rest. It took about a nano-second to take its seat front and center in our lives. By sophomore year, it was unavoidable. And now here we are. You type a half-thought into Google and Gemini’s like, “Hold my drink. I’ve got this.” It’s hard to resist – I get it – especially under pressure. And especially since it can generate a relatively decent essay with perfectly constructed sentences.
But I’ll tell you what doesn’t make you stand out in a college application: Perfect sentences saying perfectly average things. It’s boring. Mid. Not actually human. And definitely not you.
It’s not that admissions officers are going to be like, “Ohhhhh, let’s run this through the AI DETECTION SOFTWARE STAT!” Nobody has time for that.
More likely, their eyes will gloss over. They’re going to be like… oh. They’re going to feel like they’ve read some version of that story before and they will move on, forgetting what they’ve read. It’s getting harder to find actual evidence of humans in this wildly changing world.
So, when it becomes clear we’ve got a live one, we get curious. We pay attention. More often than not, we connect. (And to be clear, connection is what you want with an admission’s officer who’s narrowing down their choices).
You are not boring. You are so far from boring.
Maybe you’re the kid whose love of skateboarding inspired your passion for physics. Or the older brother who entertained your siblings with so many stories on your weekly hikes that you often lost your voice.
And speaking of voices, maybe you found yours when you stood up to a bully who wouldn’t leave that one kid alone. Let’s say the Foo Fighters kept you anchored as you grew. Or your thrifting obsession helped you appreciate humanity in a whole new way. Maybe your color-blindness allowed you to focus on shadows and shapes, in a literal and metaphorical way.
Does AI know how to tell your story? If you feed it all the details, will it figure out how to say it just right? It will not. It wasn’t there. It isn’t you.
Humans are full of wonderful imperfections, and memories that take on new meaning over time, and moments of pride and embarrassment and struggle and joy.
Here’s a bold statement you will very likely not believe, but I’m saying it anyway: Figuring out your story by processing your lifelong passions, and your milestone moments, and the shifts that felt small but were actually quite big, might very well turn out to be one of the more meaningful and fulfilling exercises you’ve done yet. Like, in life.
What I’ve found over the last several years doing this essay coaching gig is that there’s a certain magic that comes when you force yourself to stop, review, and assess your life so far. What have you loved (and what have you not)? What has made you tick and what makes you talk? What’s motivated you, what’s made you learn, when did you change? What feels so damn natural you can hardly imagine it feeling like work? Say you keep going in that direction. What might be next?
You still have time to think this through.
When you look back on this time, this outrageously obnoxious application season – and you will, over the years – you will want to reflect, to say, “this was me, then.” If you give AI permission to impersonate you, to conflate you with its polished version of a prototype, aren’t you going to wonder where you were?
Janet Damaske is a Winchester resident who is also an editorial coach. You can check out her business at BeforeYouHitSubmit.com
