The scholarship and admissions world has entered uncharted territory. As someone who's spent nearly two decades building SmarterSelect and helping organizations evaluate millions of applications, I've witnessed firsthand how technology can transform, and sometimes complicate, the way we identify and support promising students.
Today, we're facing an unprecedented paradox. Artificial intelligence systems are increasingly being used to assess student essays that may themselves be generated by AI. It's a reality that would have seemed like science fiction when we started SmarterSelect in 2007, yet here we are.
Recent data shows that 92% of students now use AI in some form, with 88% having used generative AI for assessments. Meanwhile, 82% of admissions departments are incorporating AI into their processes.
This isn't a distant problem anymore. It's happening right now, in scholarship programs and admissions offices across the globe.
When my daughter was applying for scholarships back in 2007, the experience that inspired SmarterSelect's founding, the biggest challenge was managing paper applications and home-grown web forms. How times have changed.
Students now live in an AI-enabled world. They use ChatGPT for brainstorming, Grammarly for polishing, and Quillbot for paraphrasing. Around 18% according to recent studies are even including AI-generated text directly in their scholarship applications.
In certain scholarship contexts, as many as 42% of essays show signs of AI assistance.
This isn't necessarily cheating though. In fact, many students view these tools as natural extensions of their writing process, much like spell-checkers or thesauruses were for previous generations.
The challenge for us as evaluators is determining when AI assistance crosses the line from helpful tool to academic dishonesty. And admittedly, this is a difficult thing to assess. Especially as AI content detection tools are being outsmarted by savvy students.
Meanwhile, educational institutions are turning to AI for their own evaluation processes. They're driven by valid motivations:
But here's the thing, 63% of educational institutions lack a clear vision or plan for AI implementation. We're essentially flying blind.
We’ve got to get on board with AI implementation or be left in the dust. We just need a clear roadmap for how best to go about it.
Through our work with hundreds of organizations, from small community foundations to major universities, I've seen how this AI revolution is playing out in real time. Scholarship administrators are caught in the middle, facing pressure from multiple directions.
It’s not uncommon for program managers at foundations to describe reading through 200 or more scholarship essays in a single afternoon.
We’ve heard things like:
"Half of these essays felt like they could have been written by the same person.”
"The language was too polished, the structure too perfect.”
“I can't prove they used AI to write this, and I don't want to penalize a student who might just be a genuinely gifted writer."
Sound familiar?
This uncertainty is paralyzing. Administrators worry about false accusations, but they also worry about rewarding potentially fraudulent applications.
They're investing in AI detection tools, only to discover these tools flag essays from international students at disproportionate rates. They're redesigning application processes mid-cycle, trying to stay ahead of rapidly evolving AI capabilities.
Meanwhile, the volume keeps growing. Programs that once received 500 applications now see 2,000 or more, partly because AI makes it easier for students to apply to multiple opportunities.
The efficiency gains from technology are being offset by the sheer scale of the challenge.
These aren't abstract problems. They're the daily reality for the dedicated professionals who make educational opportunities possible.
Through our work supporting over 2,000,000 applications across our platform, I've gained unique insight into the impossible position evaluators now find themselves in. They're balancing three competing demands that seem to grow more contradictory by the day.
Consider the weekend reality many program managers face: reviewing 150+ scholarship essays with a growing sense of unease. An essay reads beautifully. Too beautifully written perhaps. The structure is flawless, the language sophisticated, but something indefinable feels missing.
Do you reject a potentially deserving student based on intuition?
- or -
Do you risk rewarding dishonesty by moving forward?
This internal conflict has become the defining challenge of modern evaluation. Seasoned professionals who once trusted their instincts now second-guess every assessment. The confidence that comes from years of experience is being eroded by technological uncertainty.
Detection tools, meant to provide clarity, often create additional confusion. They flag legitimate work from non-native English speakers while missing sophisticated AI-generated content. The technology that promised to solve our problems has, in many cases, amplified them.
The volume crisis makes everything worse. When application numbers double or triple, the luxury of thoughtful consideration disappears. Evaluators find themselves in assembly-line mode, making rapid judgments about complex human stories.
This is exactly when nuanced human qualities like resilience, authentic passion, and genuine voice, become hardest to recognize and most likely to be overlooked.
What troubles me most is watching dedicated professionals lose faith in their own expertise. The very people who've devoted their careers to identifying potential are now questioning whether they can distinguish authentic student work from artificial generation.
From my perspective as someone who's dedicated their career to improving evaluation processes, the solution isn't to fear AI or embrace it uncritically. The right way forward is a human-centric approach that takes advantage of AI's strengths while preserving what makes evaluation meaningful.
Human-AI collaboration should be our north star. AI excels at initial screening, extracting data points, and flagging inconsistencies. Humans excel at nuanced interpretation, qualitative assessment, and final decision-making. The sweet spot is using AI to free up human evaluators to focus on what they do best.
Let me share a practical example. In our work with scholarship programs, we've seen success with AI handling objective criteria such as GPA calculations, requirement verification, and basic eligibility screening. This allows human reviewers to spend more time on essays, personal statements, and holistic evaluation. It's not about replacing human judgment; it's about amplifying it.
Here's where we need to get creative. Instead of trying to detect AI-generated content after the fact, we should design assessments that inherently promote authenticity.
Require students to submit drafts, reflections on their learning process, and documentation of their journey. If they used AI tools (where permitted), ask them to explain how and why. This gives you insight into their thinking process, not just their final product.
Craft questions that are difficult for current AI to address authentically. Use recent events or data that fall outside AI training datasets. Require personal reflections tied to specific lived experiences.
Mandate use of local resources or primary sources that aren't readily available online. Make the prompts so specific to the student's context that AI can't provide meaningful responses.
Interviews, presentations, or real-time assessments inherently limit AI assistance for core tasks. Yes, they require more resources, but they provide authentic insights into student capabilities.
While AI continues to evolve, there are concrete steps organizations can take right now. Let’s explore a few of them.
Establish guidelines for both evaluators using AI in their review processes and applicants using AI in their submissions. Be transparent about these policies. Students and evaluators both need to understand the boundaries.
Your team needs to understand AI capabilities, limitations, and potential biases. Use AI tools, and learn to recognize AI-generated content so you can better understand its implications for evaluation.
Don't overhaul your entire system overnight. Begin with pilot programs for specific AI applications. Monitor outcomes carefully. Gather feedback. Make adjustments before broader implementation.
Reserve human expertise for essays, personal statements, and other subjective components where qualitative judgment is paramount. These are the areas where human insight provides the most value.
Design prompts that encourage students to articulate their reasoning, motivations, and personal connections to their experiences. AI can tell you what happened, but it struggles to convey authentic personal meaning.
Instead of rewarding surface-level correctness that AI can easily mimic, focus on criteria that showcase authentic human experience: personal growth, overcoming adversity, unique perspectives, and genuine passion for specific causes. These elements are much harder for AI to replicate convincingly.
The rapid pace of AI development means best practices are evolving constantly. Organizations that share insights and challenges with peers are better positioned to navigate AI tools effectively. Consider joining professional associations or informal networks where administrators discuss AI-related challenges and solutions.
Whether you're using AI tools or implementing new authentication measures, maintain clear records of your rationale and outcomes. This documentation helps with continuous improvement and provides accountability to stakeholders.
As we navigate this AI-fueled frontier, several ethical principles should be non-negotiable:
The AI revolution in student evaluation is just beginning. We're moving toward more holistic assessment models that incorporate multiple forms of evidence.
We'll see better longitudinal tracking of student outcomes, helping us understand which interventions truly make a difference. Global collaboration networks will connect students and evaluators across traditional boundaries.
But with these advances come responsibilities. We must ensure that AI serves human flourishing, not just institutional efficiency.
We must preserve the personal touch that makes education meaningful while using technology to our advantage to make it more equitable and accessible.
At SmarterSelect, we're committed to being part of the solution. We're developing features that support transparent, ethical AI use while preserving the human elements that make evaluation meaningful. Our platform will continue to evolve, but our core mission remains unchanged: helping organizations identify and support students who can make a positive impact on the world.
The goal? To create better human systems enhanced by AI. We want to empower evaluators with intelligent tools while upholding principles of fairness, transparency, and human dignity.
The AI frontier in student evaluation isn't a challenge any of us can navigate alone. It requires collaboration, shared learning, and a commitment to putting students first.
As we've learned over the better part of two decages, the best solutions emerge when we combine technological innovation with deep human understanding.
The paradox of AI evaluating potentially AI-generated work won't disappear. But with thoughtful implementation, clear ethical guidelines, and a commitment to human-centric design, we can turn this challenge into an opportunity.
An opportunity to make evaluation more fair, more insightful, and more effective at identifying the diverse talents our world desperately needs.
The future of student evaluation lies not in choosing between human judgment and artificial intelligence, but in finding the optimal combination of both.
If we embrace a balanced approach, we can create evaluation systems that truly serve students and society. This is our opportunity to get it right. Let's take it.
Ready to explore how our platform can enhance your scholarship or admissions program while maintaining integrity and fairness? Schedule a demo to see how SmarterSelect can support your organization's mission.