Is AI going to decide if you get into college?

Algorithms are helping to narrow the field

It’s crunch time for college applications, and hopeful high school seniors are working hard to impress admissions committees to land a spot at the school of their choice.

But what if that committee wasn’t actually a committee of people. What if, instead, you had to impress a robot – or win over an artificial intelligencedriven algorithm?

You did everything you could to package your application to highlight just the right combination of grades, extracurriculars and eye-catching essays the counselor at your high school said the admissions committees at your target schools were looking for. Was it all a big waste of time?

Relax, the robots aren’t coming for college admissions quite yet. People will still be deciding on applicants for some time, and in all likelihood will always have the final say.

Yet, just as artificial intelligence is in the relatively early stages of impacting practically every business, AI will almost certainly assume a bigger role across college campuses, too.

“You would be naïve to think they’re not using some algorithmic approach today” at some of the biggest schools, says Alex Terry, the CEO of Conversica, which produces “conversational” AI business solutions, including an AI-powered admissions assistant for higher education. “When you have 40,000 or 100,000 applicants to your school, that’s just a large information technology task.”

Brian Knotts, senior vice president of research at Ellucian, a Reston, Virginia, provider of higher education software, says AI can help the schools “predict the kinds of things that caused that success or failure to matriculate” by grouping data characteristics that show why some students graduate, while others drop out. He says it’s important for any university that is relying at least partly on an algorithmic approach to build systems that avoid bias.

MEG BUSCEMA/GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY Georgia State uses a chatbot system to track acceptances.