Experts for the Media

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence tools such as generative pre-trained transformers, or GPTs, high school students may be tempted to use the tools to perfect their college applications, particularly their entrance essay.

Robert Alexander, a vice provost and the dean of enrollment management at the University of Rochester, cautions prospective college students from relying too heavily on AI tools in their applications.

“The sentiment among college admissions professionals is that while AI tools may be helpful in generating essay topics and refining or editing students’ writing, we discourage their use to compose application essays or short answers because AI stifles an applicant’s authentic voice,” Alexander says.

That personal voice becomes paramount when admissions officers are sifting through applications and considering how each student will contribute to the campus community and fit into the incoming class.

“No college or university is trying to admit perfectly identical automaton students,” Alexander says. “At the University of Rochester, for instance, we’re not looking for 1,300 perfect students. We’re trying to craft the perfect class of 1,300 very different and highly-imperfect, but great-fit students.”

The goal, he says, is to invite great students, inclusive of their imperfections, and guide them on a transformative journey through their next four years.

“Colleges want students to come in with a growth mindset and potential,” Alexander says. “So, if students think they can use AI to help make their application ‘perfect,’ I think they’re chasing the wrong brass ring.”

Alexander is an expert in undergraduate admissions and enrollment management who speaks on the subjects to national audiences and whose work has been published in national publications. Click his profile to reach him.

Neurons, the cells in brains and spinal cords that make up the central nervous system, communicate by firing electrical pulses. But scientists have found hints that neurons may transmit light as well, which would profoundly change our current understanding of how the nervous system works.

Researchers from the University of Rochester have begun an ambitious project to study if living neurons can transmit light through their axons — the long, tail-like nerve fibers of neurons that resemble optical fibers.

“There are scientific papers offering indications that light transport could happen in neuron axons, but there’s still not clear experimental evidence,” says the principal investigator, Pablo Postigo, a professor at the university's Institute of Optics. “Scientists have shown that there is ultra-weak photon emission in the brain, but no one understands why the light is there.”

If light is at play and scientists can understand why, it could have major implications for medically treating brain diseases and drastically change the way physicians heal the brain.

To learn more about Postigo's research, contact him at ppostigo@ur.rochester.edu.

Are test-optional colleges being straight with students when they say the absence of SAT and ACT scores on an application won’t affect a student’s chances of being admitted?

“Colleges are not trying to trick or trap applicants,” says Robert Alexander, who oversees the admissions process at the University of Rochester, where he is a vice provost and the dean of enrollment management. “No one is trying to fool anyone into thinking, ‘I don’t have to submit a test score,’ when that test score is secretly make-or-break.”

Much more important in any academic assessment, Alexander says, is and always has been the four years of academic performance detailed in an applicant’s high school transcript.

He says most colleges, including Rochester, take a deep dive into the transcript to not only consider the student’s grade point average, but also the rigor of the high school and its curriculum and why the student selected certain courses.

“Some students are limited by the opportunities offered at their schools,” Alexander says. “In that case, colleges look for what they have done to utilize their resources and push beyond those limitations.”

The University of Rochester has a test-optional policy.

The average standardized test score of incoming students has been trending upward, in part because the students who are most likely to submit their scores on their applications are those with strong scores.

Alexander says prospective students and their families can use the average test scores at the college or university they’re considering as a barometer, but not the arbiter of whether a student will gain acceptance.

“I think admissions officers are being as transparent as possible in telling students what they require,” Alexander says.

Alexander is an expert in undergraduate admissions and enrollment management who speaks on the subjects to national audiences and whose work has been published in national publications. Click his profile to reach him.