By the 2025 admissions cycle, a majority of applicants to the studied public policy master's program submitted at least one primarily AI-generated essay despite an explicit prohibition¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2029: local conditions change quickly
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? In the 2025 cycle, 56% of applicants submitted at least one essay flagged as primarily AI-generated, with usage climbing roughly 20 percentage points per year after ChatGPT's release. → Calvin Isley 2026
q2 i? AI usage was considerably higher among international applicants (69.3%) than domestic applicants (38.6%). → Calvin Isley 2026
Evidence¶
Calvin Isley 2026¶
Calvin Isley, Johann D. Gaebler, and Sharad Goel. (2026). AI-written admissions essays are widespread but penalized. arXiv preprint. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.22549 doi:10.48550/arxiv.2609.22549
q2 · i? · associational · r2
Observational analysis of 7,462 applications across six admissions cycles, using GPTZero's high-confidence "AI written" classification. The flagged share climbed "around 20 p.p. per year on average, to nearly 60%" by 2025, with international applicants at 69.3% versus 38.6% for domestic applicants.
"Beginning in 2023, the proportion of applicants submitting at least one essay flagged as AI-written climbs by around 20 p.p. per year on average, to nearly 60% in the most recent cycle. We find that AI usage is also considerably higher for international applicants (69.3%) than for domestic applicants (38.6%)."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Applicants who submitted AI-written essays were admitted at lower rates than comparable non-users, with an estimated penalty of about 1.5 percentage points per AI-written essay — related
- The availability of AI assistants improved the quality of submitted admissions essays, particularly mechanical aspects and especially for international applicants — related
- Admissions staff rate essays they perceive as AI-generated lower than essays they believe are human-written, even after adjusting for measured essay quality and actual AI authorship — related
- Admissions officers can often discriminate AI-written from human-written essays, achieving an AUC of 0.70, well above chance but below commercial detectors — related
- Strict AI prohibitions can intensify students' moral conflict without preventing AI use — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
majority-applicants-submitted-ai-generated-essays-2025 |
title |
By the 2025 admissions cycle, a majority of applicants to the studied public policy master's program submitted at least one primarily AI-generated essay despite an explicit prohibition |
description |
By the 2025 admissions cycle, a majority of applicants to the studied public policy master's program submitted at least one primarily AI-generated essay despite an explicit prohibition |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2026 |
recheck_by |
2029 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-10 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — calvin-isley-2026 |
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