Summary

It is unadvisable to use generative AI and it may negatively affect your application.

The long read

AI / writing aids are now commonplace and cross a broad spectrum: from simple spell checkers in MS Word to generative AI. While the exact line between what may (such as spell checkers) and may not be appropriate (generative AI) may be moot, the overriding principle is your application (and thus any personal statements contained in them) should be indeed yours. While we do not have an outright ban on the use of generative AI, we do not recommend its use to write your personal statements. There are two key reasons:

First, to quote comedian Tom Lehrer: ‘Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it.’ AI does not know you; it does not know your ambitions; it does not know your motivations to undertake a Global Opportunity; and does not know all that you have done in the past. Asking generative AI to produce a personal statement without feeding it in-depth information about you and your planned opportunity, will only produce extremely generalised statements. Such (im)personal and generalised statements always score badly.

Second, when reading multiple applications, scorers can often spot common themes and phrases. Likewise, a scorer can easily cut-and-paste a personal statement into and online AI detector, which will give a percentage score on the likelihood a statement is AI generated. A scorer may award lower marks if they find that your personal statement is written largely or entirely by something other than you.

Reading applications - a case study

A scorer can ask AI to generate a sample answer to the application questions set. The AI generated answer may then give an indication of words, phrases or themes that could indicate an AI generated submission. Since most applications are submitted through an online form, the spreadsheet populated by the form can then be filtered by these phrases to identify applications that may warrant further investigation. For example:

In the above example, a 'sprinkling' of a few additional words, such as 'research' or 'diverse' fails to hide that at least four separate applications have the same structure, tone and form.

Another step a scorer may take is to enter text (suspected of being AI) into an AI and/or plagiarism checker.  An AI checker looks at the characteristics of sentences (such as length, word choice and predictability), whereas a plagiarism checker will find text copied from other sources. These are available freely online and often produce a percentage score about how confident the checker is that a text was AI generated. We do not outright ban AI in Global Opportunity applications (see below), however, we respect the prerogative of scorers to give low marks to applications that they suspect to have heavily drawn on AI.

When may use of AI be appropriate?

Global Opportunities are open to students from all backgrounds and nationalities. Almost everyone has used an MS Word spell checker at some point. Asking an AI tool to 'proof read in British English' would be appropriate use (just as asking a friend or relative to proof read would be) as the original 'generation' of the text was by the human applicant.

Concluding thoughts

Reading AI generated applications is incredibly boring. They tend to be samey, predictable and frustrating even if there is a smattering of personal lines between the AI sentences. Trust your talents! Make the effort and take the time to write applications yourself, as this way you will stand out for the right reasons.