Artificial Intelligence and Undergraduate Admission
What role can artificial intelligence play in your college process?
Updated 9/23/25
We expect your application to reflect your own thoughts, experiences, values, and perspectives, but we know artificial intelligence (AI) can be a powerful tool in the college process when used appropriately and ethically. This is particularly the case for students in settings where college-prep resources and support may be limited. While we hope you rely on the human input of your mentors, friends, and family members as a primary resource when possible, if you choose to use AI in the college process, we share the following guidance to help you understand our expectations.
Please note, AI is an ever-evolving field, and our guidance will evolve alongside it. In the meantime, we look forward to learning about how your background and experiences have inspired you to apply to Northwestern and how you will engage with people, resources, and opportunities across the Wildcat community.
Constructive uses of generative AI that can support your research and spark your ideas:
- Researching colleges and admission terms
- Building a college tour itinerary (even a virtual college tour itinerary!)
- Exploring how your academic interests and goals connect to fields of study
- Brainstorming essay topics
- Reviewing the grammar, punctuation, and spelling of your completed essays
Problematic uses of AI that will make understanding your fit for Northwestern difficult for our admissions committee:
- Using generative AI to write your personal statement or supplemental essays by inputting prompts and submitting the output as your own writing
- Translating an essay written in another language
- Providing generative AI with an essay outline and submitting AI’s completed piece of writing
- Using generative AI to rework a supplemental essay that was written for one school for another school
Bottom line:
- Just as you wouldn’t ask another person to write your essays for you, we expect you won’t ask AI to do that work on your behalf.
- We do not employ technologies to scan or monitor for AI in our review process, but we value the opportunity to learn about your experiences, your academic foundation, and your readiness to thrive at Northwestern across your application materials—and we will learn more if those materials come from you directly, in your own voice.
- The expectation on Northwestern’s campus is to produce original work, and, as such, we expect your portion of the application will reflect your own work. To learn more about academic integrity at Northwestern please see the University Academic Integrity Policy page.