Artificial Intelligence in the Admission Process

The college application process is a deeply personal one and within the Office of Admission at Providence College, we pride ourselves on providing the level of service and attention that you will come to experience through your four years with us. It’s important, however, to not turn our heads to the great power, possibility, and responsibility that comes with the development and adoption of Artificial Intelligence. At the core of this movement, transparency is key. Below you will find the ways that we use AI in our process, as well as suggestions of how we hope prospective students use it in theirs.

How should prospective students utilize AI in the college search process…

As we work each year to build our incoming class of first-year students, it’s important that we understand the personal characteristics and nuances of those who are seeking to join our community. That being said, we recognize that the college search can be complicated and not all students have access to the same level of resources to help navigate this process. With this in mind, we offer the following on the application process:

• AI can work is a tool that can guide you in brainstorming, organizing your thoughts, and clarifying grammatical concerns. These are all appropriate uses of AI! AI should NOT write full paragraphs or essays for you.
• We care deeply about your personal voice and the message you want to get across, not the one that AI thinks we want to hear. Before submitting your application, ask yourself the following questions:
  • Does this sound like something I would say if I were having a conversation in-person?
  • Does the level of polish in this writing feel like how I usually write?
  • Do the ideas sound like my own?
  • Would someone who has known my level of writing for a long time recognize this writing as mine?

Thoughtful use of artificial intelligence does not just apply to the application submission, though. We also offer these thoughts on the college search in general:

• Our admission counselors are available to help you understand if Providence is a good fit for your next four years. When communicating with the Office of Admission, please don’t send AI-generated emails simply to demonstrate your interest in PC. Instead, think critically about a question or two that will genuinely help you learn more about what we offer.
• Artificial Intelligence can be a helpful partner in developing your college list, but you should not rely on it entirely in lieu of existing tools such as your school/college counselor or platforms like SCOIR, Naviance, Big Future, and more.
  • While the nature of AI is that it will continually improve, we have too frequently seen errors with how it represents PC. For example, we are a Catholic/Dominican college because of St. Dominic, not the Dominican Republic.
• While we wish it were not so, we understand that the college search process can at times include heightened anxiety and nervousness. Students often worry that the goal of this process is perfection, that every interaction is evaluative, and that AI can somehow navigate this better than they can. Let us be clear: we want to understand who you are, not what ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, or other AI tools think you should be. We are looking not for perfection, but for your unique story, perspective, and potential.

How does the Office of Admission utilize AI in their application review…

As explained elsewhere on this website, Providence College considers a student’s academic performance using an unweighted 4.0 GPA and an assessment of the strength of curriculum that a student has taken throughout high school. For many years, the unweighted 4.0 GPA was manually calculated by Admission staff. Beginning with the Class of 2030, artificial intelligence is now deployed to handle this part of the process.

We underwent extensive calibration and testing in advance of this change and compared the manual recalculations of previous years with those done by AI. It was incredibly accurate and helped minimized almost five weeks of our application review process into approximately 24 hours. All application readers have the opportunity to manually calculate the GPA when additional review is warranted. In the Class of 2030 review cycle, this manual recalculation was only necessary 0.54% of the time!

It’s important to note that the evaluation of a student’s strength of curriculum is still determined by admission staff as are all other parts of the application. AI does not have access nor conduct the work of reviewing your Common App, activities resume, essay, recommendations, or other components of your application! The holistic and comprehensive review that your application deserves will always be handled by the admission staff.

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