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Comment by red_admiral | Hacker News Reader

> It is no longer effective to solely use a written essay to measure how deeply a student comprehends a subject.

It never was. It's just even more ineffective now that AI exists, than before.

The central example of this is college admissions statements. Some kids have the advantage both of parents who can afford to give them the experiences that look good on such an essay (educational trips to Africa, lessons in two musical instruments, one-on-one golf coaching, that kind of thing), and who can hire tutors to "support" them in writing the essay. AI just makes the tutor part accessible/affordable for a wider segment of the population.

It would be naive to assume that, pre-AI, there was not a "gray" essay-coaching market as well as the "dark" essay-writing as a service market. That market still works better than AI in many cases.

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It is not so black and white though: there is a difference between having your whole essay written by a tutor, or having some things corrected by the tutor, or the tutor giving you general tips that you yourself apply.

Just like there is a difference between having your whole essay written by a LLM, or having some things corrected by the LLM, or the LLM giving you general tips that you yourself apply.

I agree.

Oh, I completely agree. In some cases, discussing a draft with your _university-appointed_ tutor before submitting your final essay is even part of the assignment (I believe Oxford/Cambridge humanities work this way), and a great learning experience, and a way for people who can't afford private tutors to get the same kind of coaching (how you get into this calibre of university in the first place notwithstanding).

> The central example of this is college admissions statements. Some kids have the advantage both of parents who can afford to give them the experiences that look good on such an essay (educational trips to Africa, lessons in two musical instruments, one-on-one golf coaching, that kind of thing), and who can hire tutors to "support" them in writing the essay.

This is an absolute disgrace. And then these are the people who lecture you on "inclusion".

> This is an absolute disgrace. And then these are the people who lecture you on "inclusion".

Are they? Is there any evidence of correlation between these two groups of people?

A number of institutions promote both stances.

You can decide whether it's evidence or not, but almost everything Freddie deBoer has ever written about college admissions points in that direction and I personally trust him on this topic, among other things because he presents scientific evidence that the SAT is much more reliable than some people make out to be, and is much more resistant to private tutoring. (One thing the SAT doesn't do is keep Asians out, however.) A search for "Freddie deBoer college admissions" with your favorite non-AI-shittified search engine should find lots of articles.

Well, 15 years ago when I did masters, there was a service that would write the essay for you to score A.

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