Integrity and AI Use in the Admissions Process

For Applicants: Your Application Should Represent You

Your essays, activities, and responses should reflect your own ideas, your own voice, and your own experiences. This has always been true, and it remains true regardless of what assistance you might use along the way.

Getting help is not the same as losing ownership. Talking through an idea with a parent, teacher, or counselor, having someone proofread your writing, or using a tool, including an AI tool, to organize your thoughts or check your grammar, doesn't compromise your application certification. 

What would compromise your application is submitting work, ideas, or experiences that aren't authentically yours, whether that means someone else wrote your essay, an AI tool generated your responses, or your activities and honors are embellished or invented.

Here’s a simple test: if you couldn't explain, in an interview or conversation, how you arrived at what you wrote, or speak to it in your own words, it isn't ready to submit.

This same standard extends to every part of your file. Supporting materials must come from you or from an authorized source, and any change in your circumstances or the information you've provided should be reported to us directly, as your certification already requires. 

Your Integrity Matters Even After You Hit "Submit"

Your application certification doesn't end at submission. Penn's expectations of honesty and integrity extend from the time of application all the way through your time at Penn. Your offer of admission remains contingent on the same standards you affirmed when you applied. 

For Counselors and Teachers: Your Assessment Should Reflect What You Know

The letters of recommendation and evaluations you provide carry weight because they reflect your direct knowledge of a student. We rely on the substance, specific details, and the judgement that are provided by you.

You are also a guide for students navigating questions regarding authenticity and integrity in their applications. You can remind them that even with support, their work must be their own and share this page as a resource if helpful. 

For Penn's Own Process: We Hold Ourselves to the Same Standard

Our staff is responsible for evaluating materials and for the decisions made about admissions, relying on our holistic, committee-based process. Artificial Intelligence does not do that for us.  

We do use technology, including AI tools, to support parts of our process that are administrative rather than evaluative: confirming that an application is complete and accurate, ensuring consistency of the understanding and interpretation of transcript and grading scales, assisting with preliminary credit review for transfer applicants, and assisting with the processing of incoming documentation. In every one of these cases, a member of our staff reviews and confirms the outcome before it affects your file.