UCI Podcast: Admissions and AI

In this episode of the UCI Podcast, Sheri Ledbetter, director of internal and critical communications, speaks with Dale Leaman, the executive director of the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. The discussion centers on requirements prospective students should keep in mind when applying to UCI and the other UC campuses. There is also some information about the emerging role of artificial intelligence in the admissions process, from the perspective of students and admissions office staff who are processing thousands of applications. Leaman brings an extensive background to higher education with 28 total years with the University of California and the last 11 with UCI. He’s been the executive director of undergraduate admissions for the past five years.

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Transcript

Sheri Ledbetter:

From the University of California, Irvine. This is the UCI Podcast. I’m Sheri Ledbetter. Thank you for joining me. Joining us on the UCI Podcast is a return guest, Dale Leaman, the Executive Director of the Office of Undergraduate Admissions. Dale brings an extensive background to higher education with 27 total years with the University of California and the last 10 with UC Irvine. Welcome Dale.

Dale Leaman:

Thanks, Sheri. Actually, I think it’s 28 and 11 now, but we’ve been doing this so long.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Okay. We’ll get that updated. Dale and I have spoken previously on the UCI podcast on the admissions process. This year’s data revealed a third consecutive record breaking year for UCI in numbers of applications received at 143,000, and we had a record breaking number of admissions offers in past episodes. Dale and I spoke about the admissions process at a high level, covering the application and also what happens on our end once an application is submitted. In this episode, we are looking toward the students who are applying now for entrance in the fall of 2024, and we’ll talk about the changing landscape with consideration toward artificial intelligence and Chat GPT. So applications to the University of California opened on August 1st and applicants have until November 30th to submit. For those who are new to the process, how does a student apply to UCI? Can you walk us through the different pieces and provide a basic overview of the application?

Dale Leaman:

Sure. So all applicants to the nine undergrad UC campuses, both first years and transfers use Apply UC. That’s a program that’s managed through the office of the president, and we ask applicants to provide us with their academic history and also answer some pursuant side questions, and also tell us about their extracurricular activities. Now, we use that tool for both first years and transfers, and one thing I really want to emphasize is that there is occasionally confusion about whether a student is a first year or a transfer if you’re still in high school. It doesn’t matter how many college courses you’ve taken, you’re still applying as a first year. So even though you might have earned an AA degree or two while you’ve been in high school student, whether you’re got 60 college units or 120 college units, you might have completed – you might have all those things done before you graduate from high school because you’re like a superstar. <laugh> We still want you to apply. You still have to apply as a first year until you graduate from high school.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Interesting. Okay. So there are students applying as transfers then, or attempting to because they’ve taken so many college level courses as a high school student. 

Dale Leaman:

That’s right. 

Sheri Ledbetter:

But they can’t,

Dale Leaman:

Well, they, they choose the wrong application is what happens. You know, most of the time when they choose the transfer application will let them go through that process. Most high school counselors are aware of the rules. When you go on the application, it talks about the rules, but it does happen, and that’s a really difficult thing for us to sort of unwind once we get down to selection time.

Sheri Ledbetter:

I see. Okay. Great. Thank you. Let’s talk about submitting official transcripts. What are the best practices for applicants with regard to using official records to complete the courses and grades?

Dale Leaman:

Sure. That’s a great question and a great place to start. Unlike the common app or some other applications, we do not collect official transcripts at the time of application. We collect those much later in the summer once the student has been admitted and has accepted our offer. So students filling out the application are generally going in by hand and putting in the course they took, in which term they took the course, what grade they earned, and then going through their entire high school or community college or earlier college experiences and putting in all that information. It’s really important for a student to use accurate transcripts or grade reports from their high school or from their colleges for this purpose rather than working from memory. It’s really unfortunate and a difficult conversation to have when we get down to August and we’ve admitted a student, they’ve agreed to come to us and we get official transcripts and they don’t match what’s been on the application.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Mm.

Dale Leaman:

And unfortunately, a lot of students work from memory or they think, oh, I remember getting an A in that course, or I remember taking calculus and maybe it wasn’t, it was a similarly named course, or maybe the grades weren’t exactly the same. And we admit, based on the information we have on the application, and every year have to withdraw some offers based on the official information we received, not lining up with the information that was on the application.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Oh, interesting. So that’s pretty important. But that happens after the fact.

Dale Leaman:

Yes. That happens way later in the, in the summer. So that’s almost, almost a year from now. We would have that, we would do that review of the official transcripts.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Okay. So, let’s back up a little bit. When we were talking about the fundamentals of the application, you brought up PIQs – personal insight questions. Let’s talk about those for a little bit. What are the PIQs and what are some things students should take into consideration when completing their PIQs.

Dale Leaman:

On the application students are given the choice between eight different personal insight questions and we asked them to respond to four of them. These are short answers, these are not lengthy essays. What we are really trying to do is understand why a student might be interested in the specific major, how their activities have influenced or impacted their school career, how their outside individual context or situation may have impacted their school. Those are all things that we’re asking in the PIQs. We really are looking for a student to literally answer the question, not write a lengthy essay, which kind of brings me to the whole question about AI and chat GPT. 

Sheri Ledbetter:

I was just going to ask you about that.  

Dale Leaman:

There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of concern right now in higher ed about how AI is sort of changing the landscape or changing our interactions with students. UC, frankly, is pretty sure that a whole bunch of students are going to use AI to complete their personal insight questions. <laugh>

Sheri Ledbetter:

Okay. <laugh>.

Dale Leaman:

And we, I think some of the campuses are more comfortable with that than others. From our perspective, we just want to be sure that students are using it as a tool to help them craft their response. Not a way to just generate something out of whole cloth. You know, if a student has a story to tell, we want that story to be theirs. We don’t want it to be generated in some other way. Are we going to be able to tell who’s used AI and who didn’t? Probably not. Are we going to be able to make any real distinctions between a human-generated essay and an AI generated essay? Maybe. But really, if it’s the truth and it helps us tie the student’s situation and the student’s story to their grades and their activities, that’s what we want. I know that in a lot of places, AI is really distressing to everyone. We’re going to hope that students are taking advantage of it as a way to help tell their story.

Sheri Ledbetter:

So what would you say to a student or to students considering using AI as part of filling out their personal insight questions?

Dale Leaman:

I would say use the prompts. If you’re trying to get a great essay about being the captain of your soccer team and the leadership, use the prompts to see where that takes you. But be sure you rewrite it in your own words. I mean, I suspect that if you had, if 10 students entered in promps with something that I just said, you know, soccer captain, leadership…

Sheri Ledbetter:

Yeah. First cello, whatever.

Dale Leaman:

First cello, whatever you’re going to put in there, you’re going to get a whole bunch of pretty similar essays. Take the time to rewrite it the way, so it sounds like you take the time to make sure it tells your story and not a random story that the AI has come up with.

Sheri Ledbetter:

The authenticity.

Dale Leaman:

Authenticity.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Right. That completely makes sense. Yep.

Dale Leaman:

Just while we’re talking about AI, I might as well mention that there are some other aspects of it that have come up lately that have been, you know, questions that I’ve heard. Are you using AI to make selection? Are you using AI to actually read the applications? And we’re not doing that. All of our applications, every single application is read by at least two trained human readers given an assessment. We do not use AI for selection. I know that’s a trend that some highly selective campuses are going to.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Oh.

Dale Leaman:

We’re trying to think of ways to use AI to facilitate the really, really time consuming process of verifying transcripts in the summer.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Oh, okay.

Dale Leaman:

And that’s where we think AI is going to be valuable. We also think that AI can be valuable for transfer students who are saying, who could go into a into a tool and say, here are the courses I took. Am I going to be eligible for mechanical engineering? Have I met all the requirements for Bio Sci? So we see AI as facilitating or smoothing out some of those really time consuming processes for both the students and for us.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Sure. Creating efficiencies. So you’re leaning into it where it makes sense.

Dale Leaman:

Absolutely.

Sheri Ledbetter:

Okay. Anything else you want to touch on with regard to AI and, and the admissions or application process?

Dale Leaman:

Um, no, that’s, that’s pretty much it. I mean, I’m sure people will have questions. I’m sure <laugh> come March some, I’m sure we’ll talk again.

Sheri Ledbetter:

All right. Well this has been great. Thanks Dale so much for joining us to provide another insight into admissions. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you.

Dale Leaman:

Thanks, Sheri. Appreciate it.

Sheri Ledbetter:

You can learn more about the Office of Undergraduate admissions at admissions.uci.edu. For the latest news be sure to check out at UC Irvine News on X, formerly known as Twitter, or online at news.uci.edu. The UCI podcast is a production of Strategic Communications and Public Affairs at the University of California, Irvine. I’m Sheri Ledbetter. Thank you for listening.