Using AI to Assess the Correlation Between Admittance Status and College Essays
Keywords:
AI, College Essay, Computer ScienceAbstract
Over the past decade, admissions rates to selective universities have been significantly dropping, and with so many students having similar academic achievements there has been a greater emphasis placed on the college essay. We examined the correlation between admittance status and college essays by creating a non-biased AI model capable of predicting a student’s admittance to university only based on their essay with 76% accuracy. In addition, we ran sentiment, emotion, and topic analysis natural language processing models to reveal the common characteristics found in admitted essays. The results concluded that admissions officers favored essays with either a strong positive or negative sentiment, that conveyed a strong sense of desire, and were related to an educational topic. These results are an important tool for students and families to gain a better insight into the increasingly confusing university admissions process.
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