Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal published a piece on Cal Tech's "fraud squad," a group of four professionals who review admitted students' credentials to confirm they're valid. The squad is looking for fabricated extracurriculars, awards, and research, but the WSJ article also mentions concerns about AI use for essays. (I'll link to the article here, but you'll need to create a free, temporary account to read the piece.)
I heard an excellent conversation about this topic on the Your College Bound Kid podcast (episode 665), a discussion I'd recommend hearing. Where I differ slightly is that I would suggest avoiding AI even for brainstorming a personal statement. It's just too easy to go from there to introducing language that is not authentic to the candidate.
