That time a Valley Girl wrote an essay
Let me take you back to the afternoon the AI arrived at my house…
Greg (my son) walked into my office like he’d just discovered fire.
“Mom. Go to this website,” he commanded, pointing at my screen with the terrifying confidence of a teenager who wasn't going to let me get away with “I'm busy right now”. Sigh.
I rolled my eyes and typed in the URL for ChatGPT.
He leaned over my shoulder, pointed at the box, and told me to give it a command, so I did:
“Write a personal statement for a high school student applying to college.”
The cursor blinked once, then sprinted across the page.What came back was… spectacularly bad. Stiff. Robotic. Totally cliché.
So bad it became funny. So we made it worse…
I typed, leaning in. Like, omg, I was not emotionally prepared for what came next…
Dear reader, I laughed. Hard.
But even as I laughed, I realized:
This AI thing changes nothing…
and it changes everything.
Nothing, because the writing was unusable garbage (bless its heart, as they say here in the south). Everything, because I knew this tech wouldn’t stay middle-school-level clumsy forever.
Well… hello, December 2025. Here we are.
The tech isn't clumsy anymore. It’s polished enough to tempt a time-crunched 17-year-old into thinking, “Oh, perfect. AI can write my personal statement while I eat Cheez-Its.”
🎄Winter break is coming… and the forecast is 100% chance of AI.
Winter break is for many teens a rare moment to get something priceless: space. No homework avalanches (hopefully). No bell schedule. Just enough quiet to hear themselves think.
Parents across the country are warming up their annual December classic: “Sweetie, since you finally have time, how about you work on your essay?”
Teens are thinking: “How fast can I get this over with and get back to hanging out with my friends/playing Fortnite/grabbing a peppermint latte at Starbucks?”
And the AI? It’s sitting in the background like a gingerbread cookie perched on their shoulder, whispering, “I can finish this before you even text your friends to meet at the skating rink.”
Let’s be honest: many teens will take the bait.
Not because they’re cheaters. But because they are tired, overwhelmed, and would rather reorganize their closet than write about their deepest story.
But here is the trap: AI essays don’t sound "wrong" anymore. They sound too right. It's like those holiday cards that arrived weeks ago with just the sender's signature—perfectly phrased, beautifully printed, and missing the one thing that matters most: something, anything from the sender's heart.
Look, admissions officers read 30+ essays a day. They hear the "bot voice" instantly. Their instincts are Spidey-sharp. Heck, there's a good chance you're able to sense AI—and you're not sifting through hours of essay reading at work!
You see… those AI essays tend to be:
Clean in a way teen writing rarely is — no slightly off words, no quirky personality, and not a comma out of place.
Adult-ish, as if a grammar coach tried to cosplay as a teenager.
Buffet-table bland — technically fine, but emotionally forgettable.
Suspiciously calm, like the writer is hovering politely above their life rather than living it.
Evenly toned, as if the emotional thermostat got stuck on 71 degrees.
And then, there are the “tell-tale phrases.” Here are just a few that, if you see these, you know a bot was in the Google Doc:
🚩 The "Not This, But That" Formula: “True leadership is not about commanding the room; it is about empowering the silence.” (AI loves these perfectly balanced, cheesy binaries).
🚩 The "Tapestry" Trap: “As I look back at the rich tapestry of my experiences…” (Real teens don’t have tapestries. They have laundry piles.)
🚩 The "Delve" Addiction: “I decided to delve into the multifaceted nuances of…” (No 17-year-old says "delve" or "multifaceted" unless they are mocking a textbook).
The wording isn't wrong; it's just… synthetic. And admissions officers feel the lack of any natural fibers by sentence two.
🎁
AI isn’t the problem. The shortcut is.
When teens let AI draft their essay, they skip the entire point of the personal statement: to reveal something true about who they are.
The personal statement is meant to uncover:
Who they’re becoming: The genuine version (which can be super hard to articulate), not the highlights-reel one that most students present.
The fingerprints: The moments that mattered TO THEM, even if they weren’t especially dramatic.
The vulnerability: How they handled life when it threw a wrench or a curveball, and they didn't navigate that moment perfectly, but actually learned something that might stick with them for decades and make them a better human.
AI hasn't lived any of this.
It hasn’t watched them wrestle with a decision, or grow from a horribly uncomfortable experience, or figure out the perfect gift for a best friend after they got their tonsils out. It didn’t see the moment they shifted and grew up just a bit. It didn’t witness the internal arc—the part that actually matters.
So yes, AI produces smooth writing. But smooth writing isn't the goal.
Being real is. Telling your deepest story is. Sharing what matters to you is.
📃
The 2025 College Wishlist: Grit, not Grammar
Colleges barely care about your teen’s command of semicolons (or em-dashes).
They’re looking for:
A contributor, not just a consumer. These are students who ADD to the campus life experience.
A worldview shaped by lived moments, not borrowed phrases.
Independent thinking, even if it’s imperfect.
Honest reflection, not manufactured profundity.
Curiosity and vulnerability in those small, telling details.
A story that could not possibly belong to anyone else.
A teen can’t write a detailed enough AI prompt for this kind of writing. It takes a real human. And not a language model that crafts its responses based on what it's learned from millions of other writers.
❗
So... can they use AI at all?
(Yes, here's how.)
If your teen insists on using AI (and they most likely will)… here’s how to use it well. Coach them to treat it as a sparring partner, not a ghostwriter.
Use it for:
✔ Brainstorming: To surface questions that actually make them think.
✔ Memory Jogging: To elicit moments they forgot mattered.
✔ Clarifying: To articulate the insight they’ve been circling… but then make sure your student puts the insight in THEIR words (even though what Ms.Chattybot gives them will sound…well, perfect).
✔ Exploring: To offer frames they hadn't considered.
✔ Editing (this is the key): To tighten structure, flag where clarity slips, and suggest options—then have your teen decide what stays, what goes, and how it sounds in their voice. (Hint: these kinds of edits are a word here, a phrase there. That's it. Anything more is like too much makeup.)
Use the AI to help them figure out what to say — not decide how to sound. That’s the difference between an essay that reads like a template… and one that reads like a teenager with a pulse (and some original thoughts).
🌟
How I Actually Use AI (And Why It’s Less Than You’d Think)
Last year, I used AI for editing more than I do now. Over time, I’ve found that the way it “flattens” writing often creates more work for me than simply making the small, human adjustments that improve flow and clarity for a student's writing.
These days, I might check in with it once a week — usually for a single paragraph that’s so convoluted I can’t even see where to start. And even then, I’ve typically already sent it back to the student for them to try again first.
Other times, I’ll use it like a thesaurus when the just-right word isn’t coming to me. But if I, as an adult, can’t find the word — and the student couldn’t either — that’s usually a sign the sentence needs to be rethought, not dressed up.
The biggest reason I don’t rely on AI, though, is this: it can only work with what’s already on the page. And often, what a student needs most isn’t cleaner grammar — it’s a missing angle, a sharper perspective, or a strategic shift they don’t yet know how to name. The bot doesn’t catch that. And students don’t know how to ask for it.
But I do.
That instinct — the ability to sense what’s missing — is a sort of sixth sense, and it’s something no algorithm can replicate.
If your teen plans to “knock out the essay” over winter break, AI is definitely riding shotgun.
Your job isn’t to ban it, panic about it, or pretend it’s not there. It’s to help your teen slow down just enough to use it wisely — as a tool, not a shortcut.
So yes, forward them this email. Or better yet, read it together.
Because what admissions officers are hoping to read isn’t the essay equivalent of a perfectly symmetrical plastic Christmas tree — polished, predictable, and machine-made. They’re looking for the real thing. A little uneven. A little messy. But unmistakably natural and alive.
The difference comes from asking better questions before hitting “submit.” Questions that help your teen think, reflect, revise — and make choices that actually sound like them. Because like… when an essay actually sounds like your kid, admissions officers totally notice.
That’s where you come in. Not as the editor. Not as the enforcer. But as the calm presence who helps keep the focus on what matters.
With warmth, holiday cheer, and just enough guidance at the right moment,
Christy Sharafinski
Your go-to college essay + admissions mentor
P.S. I'm wishing you a holiday season full of making memories, enjoying snuggles, and minimal pine needle cleanup. And if winter break essay progress looks more “silent night” than “joyful and triumphant,” reach out. I'm here for you.
👋 Hi, if we haven't met yet, I'm Christy. I help students craft standout essays so they can submit their best possible applications with confidence.
Wanna chat? www.calendly.com/easiercollegeessays/30min
