MORNING GLORY: The best case for AI? Let it decide who gets into college

There is a debate about whether the widespread adoption and application of artificial intelligence models will cost jobs, and if so, in which industries.

If some obvious employment categories can be identified as ripe for replacement by AI, patterns should emerge about which sorts of jobs are in immediate peril.

One obvious candidate for replacement by AI is the staff of admissions offices at the nation’s colleges and universities.

There are not enormous numbers of these positions, but there are excellent reasons to put AI to work in those offices, and not just to save money in the budgets of increasingly beleaguered schools.

AI ISN’T JUST A PROBLEM, IT’S A SOLUTION.

SOME PEOPLE ARE ALREADY MAKING THE MOST OF IT The College and University Professional Association for Human Resources released a study in April 2023 of 12,042 admissions employees at 940 institutions.

On average, there were more than a dozen admissions staff members at every institution.

There are more than 4,000 degree-granting institutions in the U.S., so a workforce of at least 40,000 is a reasonable estimate of the size of one group AI is coming for. (Even at the institutions where cost-cutting pressure is highest, there will still be a need for a couple of admissions officers, so don’t project a 100% loss of jobs here.) Why the focus on the staffs of admissions offices? Because the college and graduate application process is driven by paper and numbers: test scores, GPAs, essays, resumes, and recommendations from tens of thousands of young people all aiming for a prized result.

Almost all of the applicants share a hope for a fair process.

The sorting and scaling of numbers—GPAs and test scores—are exactly what AI can compile and assess in hours, if not minutes.

If AI is even a tenth as powerful as advertised, it should be able to sort resumes and recommendations by truthfulness, quality, and sincerity.

Essays can be combed through for originality as well as for evidence of outside assistance.

REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: LAWMAKERS WRESTLE OVER WHETHER AI CAN MAKE THE GRADE IN AMERICA'S CLASSROOMS AI can also be given weights for factors that are legitimate indicators of merit beyond academic achievement, such as in-state/out-of-state status, gender, family income, the difficulty of life circumstances, and the need for broad geographic and class diversity.

AI models can also be trained to evaluate grades and performance based on the nature of the secondary school or college attended.