We know that the growing popularity of ChatGPT in YouTube, TikTok and every other social media may raise a common question of writing study abroad applications. Well, technically, you can use ChatGPT for writing your study abroad application. However, we strongly say ‘No you shouldn’t’. ChatGPT is basically a chatbot which is in the news for creating complex written responses to simple questions. Making ChatGPT to write your applications may put your academic future at risk leading to the end of your study abroad journey before it even starts.
We agreed to the fact that the AI chatbot has many features making every complex essay, projects, and technical papers easy. But we are going to give our 4 strong reasons explaining why you should n't use ChatGPT, no matter whether you use it to write your application or your studies.
Plagiarism & complex texts
Plagiarism is an act of stealing and passing off ideas or words of another as one's own. To understand it more simply, assume you asked your close friend about his homework, you copied and presented the homework claiming you have done it on your own. Popular software company Turnitin recently called ChatGPT as ‘Contract Cheating’, meaning students who represent “AI assisted writing papers claiming as their own”.
ChatGPT has an ability to create a fluent-passable essay in a minute. It can do so by taking words together from the billions of online texts spreaded all over the internet. Therefore, sometimes this even makes “ChatGPT prone to giving wrong or out of the context answers”.
To test it on our own, we gave ChatGPT the prompt: “Write a brief admissions essay for a student from Vietnam who wants to pursue their undergraduate at the University of Toronto in Business Management.” The bot, however, produced the attractive essay putting all the general statements about how the student was inspired to learn from University of Toronto professors, plus a life-long interest in Business Management.
It also included his achievements in several student organizations like Youth Entrepreneurship Club and even collaborated with many organizations leading projects. Now, you may be thinking, “so what’s wrong with these?” Well, there is one problem with the results. ChatGPT has invented these results by itself with no reality or connection with an actual student.
Hence, not only that generated essay is plagiarized, but it also included fake-non existing achievements just to create a typical “essay” word count asked by the user. Different AI researchers already call these AI created facts as “hallucinations.” So, don’t risk your application with this.
Not sure How to Write Statement of Purpose for Study Abroad? Learn Here
Risk of Application Rejection & Admission
The second reason actually relates with the first one that is, “Plagiarism”. Plagiarism may put a full-stop on your study abroad journey before it starts. In case of found plagiarism in your submitted application, essay or statement of purpose, your international student application will surely be disqualified or dismissed without any second thought. Not only this, the college or university you've applied to could possibly flag your name against any future applications.
However, if you’re already enrolled and studying abroad and your work is suspected of plagiarism more than a limited percentage (usually 10%), penalties include failing the assignment or even being expelled. Universities these days use strong plagiarism tools like Turnitin, QueText, and Unicheck, which are advanced enough to detect ChatGPT-based writing easily.
The good news is that ChatGPT, OpenAI, has also considered this issue and discussed adding a digital watermark to every text generated by the app. Due to this reason, the odds of getting caught are quite high, and will even be higher in the future. So, ask yourself, is it worth risking your study abroad dream to save a few hours?
Think about the Future
You may be well aware how rapidly the study abroad process has evolved and is still evolving. Entry & widespread use of ChatGPT could definitely force some more advanced changes in the application process. In the coming future, colleges and universities are more likely to use methods/processes which could be less likely to plagiarize.
For example: Universities usually ask for admission essays to evaluate student’s creativity and ability to express themselves. If you think writing those essays is challenging, then try to speak live over video chat on a random topic. It could be possible in the near future. Colleges may directly contact on a video chat to gauge each student’s abilities effectively.
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You Know Yourself Better
We accept it: Writing a whole bunch of letters, essays and applications takes time and feels so intimidating. This stuff even becomes harder for a student who lacks writing skills or confidence in expressing themselves. But if you’ve written your applications in your own voice, it does not matter if it’s perfect or not, it’s truly so much better than handling your responsibility to an AI.
At the end of the day, admission essays like statement of purpose, letter of motivation are personal. So, when it comes to describing yourself, you are always a world’s best writing expert. Whether it is about sharing your passions, your study interests in a particular area or your future objectives. Execute a deep research about what and where you want to study, so you can speak thoughtfully about the inspirations, teachers whom you cherish most or the skills you want to achieve on a greater level.
Your life up to this point may not seem very exciting to you, but remember there is always a thread which connects all international students together, that is “you all have big dreams.” You have got goals, you’ve listed the places you want to go, and every single thing you want to make it happen. Include those, and state the reason that being part of the particular university or college will help you in your success.
Lastly, colleges and universities abroad search for students who have a passion and a clear goal. They looked for the students who wanted to learn. Hence, using ChatGPT for your study abroad application is like already being dependent upon the machines without acknowledging yourself.
It’s more like saying you don’t care enough about applying to write something for yourself. Spend the time to craft a unique personal statement and application essays that improve your chances of acceptance and to keep the process open to more people. Your future is priceless!
Want to Start you Study Abroad Journey? Reach out to the team at AdviseBridge!