University of North Carolina has been using AI to look over admissions papers for years
‘The main motivation was to allow our evaluators to concentrate on the things we think are the most important,’ a university admissions official explained.
Though AI has been increasingly used by students and universities, this trend has faced some criticisms.
The University of North Carolina has been reviewing application materials from new students for several years using an AI program, according to the school’s student paper.
Since 2019, the school has been using the Project Essay Grade AI program to look over new applicants’ essays, The Daily Tar Heel reported.
The program was developed by Measurement Incorporated, a “leading provider of customized educational assessment services” for “testing companies” and other groups. The Project Essay Grade AI is an automatic grading program that is at “the core of [Measurement Incorporated’s] automated scoring solution.”
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Vice Provost for Enrollment Rachelle Feldman explained that the University of North Carolina relies on the AI to free up time for admissions officials to focus more on the content of essays rather than on other aspects of such papers, saying: “The main motivation was to allow our evaluators to concentrate on the things we think are the most important,” the Tar Heel reported.
The issue of AI usage in higher education has been garnering more attention.
A November, 2023 survey by BestColleges, for example, found that more than half of college students answered that they “use or have used Al tools to help complete assignments or exams.”
According to a February report from Open AI, the developer of the popular AI program ChatGPT, more than a third of college-age Americans “use ChatGPT, and among these users, over one-quarter of their messages are about learning, tutoring, and school work.”
The embrace of AI is not just limited to students, as more and more universities, such as Harvard and Princeton, are adopting AI.
This trend is not without its critics and consequences, however.
53 percent of Americans, for example, believe that students’ reliance on “AI in education after high school” has a “negative impact” on their learning, according to a survey conducted by New America.
The same survey also demonstrates that 56 percent of Generation Z Americans, 55 percent of millennials, and 51 percent of Generation X Americans share this negative assessment of AI’s effects.
The University of Minnesota also recently expelled a student, Haishan Yang, whom it accused of cheating on a test with AI.
Campus Reform has reached out to the University of North Carolina for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
