Is it OK to use AI for a Personal Statement or Statement of Purpose?

The short answer is yes, and no. Universities neither prohibit nor punish applicants for using AI if they use it well, but you are likely to be rejected if you use it poorly. Some applicants tend to confuse the use of AI with plagiarism. Plagiarism is prohibited. You cannot take information off the internet and publish it as if you were the author of the material. It is not even safe to do so when you change a few words. Ideas that are not your own must be entirely re-written. If not, your application will almost certainly be rejected for plagiarism. All Statements—Personal Statements and Statements of Purpose—are checked for plagiarism. Typically, this is done by an administrative assistant. There are also detectors for the use of AI, websites where you can submit a document and AI tells you if it was written by AI or not. Like the plagiarism test, it is not a simple yes or no, but a ranking. The plagiarism test gives you an estimate of the percentage of the document that was plagiarized, the AI detector, similarly, gives you an estimate of the percentage of the document that was written by AI.

You can use AI without having any problems at all, many successful applicants use AI, but you must do it well! This is why I have introduced a new Statement enhancement service with AI support. Essentially, you must answer three simple questions on your own without AI assistance:

Why do you want this program, and why at this university (if applicable)?

What have been your most critically important experiences both personally and professionally?

What are your long-term goals, especially but not necessarily professional?

Once you have written at least two full sentences for each question, three to five is much better, then just ask AI to edit the material by paragraph and to expand it, until you are close to the length limit imposed by the program to which you are applying. Then, you have a nearly perfectly written statement. But AI does make mistakes, it is often repetitive, and the Admissions Committee will recognize these errors as what they are, typical AI errors, and your application is quite likely be rejected. This is why my statement service has great value. At only US$99.00, I can do this for you, assuring that the original material plugged into the AI is perfect, avoiding and fixing the errors made by AI, as well as giving the entire statement a human touch. This is the contribution that I can make to your statement that AI cannot.