Avoid the ChatGPT Slop: How to Use AI to Enhance Your MBA Essays, Not Flatten Them
Ask about an MBA admissions consultant in the online forums, and complete strangers, people with no real stake in your future, will happily tell you to “just use ChatGPT”. They might even try to make you feel inadequate if you suggest you need expert human support.
I’m writing this blog post as I sit here, on a Saturday morning, having taken a break from reviewing MBA essays. And I want to write about the one thing that has definitely changed this year. It’s this.
Compared to previous years, all essays are now more technically correct. Where in the past, they may have been a bit disjointed, now the flow is there. Where they may have been choppy, they are now buttoned up. More polished, you may say.
But a clear dividing line has appeared. And no, it’s not about the em dashes.
Some essays now read awfully “samesies”: tidy lists of three, symmetrical phrasing, and chronological oversimplicity are beyond ubiquitous.
But it’s not just a question of style. They lack the idiosyncrasies and emotional nuance that can make an essay sing with individuality and purpose.
The worst part is the hollow imitation of insight. What does that look like? It reads like this: “This experience taught me the importance of collaboration and resilience.”
And then the overuse of transitions and fillers (“Looking ahead, I hope to…” and “This experience was a turning point…”) leaves me, as the reader, unmoved and unconvinced.
Why is AI slop happening in your MBA application materials?
Quite simply, it happens when you use AI to outsource too much of your thinking, reflection and writing. AI can only remix what it’s seen before. It doesn’t know the moments that shaped you, the difficult or unusual choices you made in your career, or the real reason you want an MBA.
So when it offers an essay, what you get is an echo of some collective thought. Some nicely sounding generalities, but not a revelation.
Even when candidates write their own drafts, they often feed them through AI tools again and again to make things more “concise,” more “clear,” more “unique.”
And in that process of boiling things down again and again, you end up with crisp sentences with no pulse. Essays lose the natural rhythm and rawness that signal human presence.
The Hidden Risk of AI-Powered MBA Admissions Coaches
Some of the sameness is coming from the AI coaches that are popping up everywhere. You know the kind: AI-powered voice and chat coaches for MBA applications, priced really low, often built by top program grads and marketed as “I built you the tool I wish I had”.
That sounds appealing. Until you look under the hood.
The problem with most AI admissions coaches is in how they’re built. They inevitably rely on publicly available information, which means they’re trained on the schools’ own marketing materials and, yes, on content produced by admissions consultants like me. In fact, I’ve seen My MBA Path cited in these tools an awful lot (that’s OK, my mission is to share my knowledge liberally and generously).
But what’s much more alarming is that these AI consultants ingest not just your personal inputs, but those of every other user. The output is then drawn from that collective pool, which means your “personalized” essay ends up as the statistical average of hundreds of other applicants. And when your application reads like an average, that’s exactly how the AdCom will treat it.
An MBA Admissions coach with actual admissions expertise can help you be the opposite of that: a candidate with clarity, specificity, and a voice that could only belong to you.
What about AI detection?
I keep hearing the same question: “Will my MBA Essays get flagged for AI?”
But the actual and much bigger risk isn’t detection. It’s unintentional plagiarism.
When you use AI, you might be trusting a tool that’s been trained on other people’s essays. That means it can feed you phrasing, structure, or ideas that are just a little too close to existing material.
You won’t know. But the plagiarism detection tools might, and that’s the kind of problem that, unlike AI detection, can really doom an MBA application.
If any of this is making you think I’m anti-AI, I need to stop you right here. AI has tremendous capabilities and used the right and smart way, it can do mostly everything an MBA admissions coach might do. But using it the right and smart way is not all that easy.
So how do you use AI the smart way in my MBA application?
If you choose to use AI for your essays, it’s absolutely imperative that you don’t let it write or rewrite material for you. Use it as a thought partner, someone who will push you to dig deeper, uncover stronger and entirely unique insights, and deliver them with more precision.
Here are the three key steps to using AI for your MBA application, without letting it take away your authentic voice:
1) Ask the right questions.
Skip: “Rewrite this to sound better.” Instead, ask it to help you clarify and tighten, e.g. “Am I using too much detail or not enough?”
2) Use it to test strategic focus.
Ask: “What parts of this essay don’t clearly support my message?”
3) Get options instead of overwrites.
Use AI to help you learn how to improve the way YOU write: “Ask me questions that will help me come up with stronger ideas for transitions between this paragraph and the next.”
Bonus tip: Talk to your AI!
Typing takes time so when you prompt AI by typing, you often skimp on details and the nuances get lost. It also filters your thinking. We present our arguments and ideas differently in writing than speaking.
When we speak, we express ourselves more freely, more instinctively. And that unfiltered narrative is often the clearest path to your most human, compelling story.
Frequently Asked Questions About Using AI in MBA Applications
Help: my MBA essays are being flagged for AI use. What do I do?
First, take a deep breath. AI detection tools are notorious for producing false positives, especially with well-written, structured text. If you wrote your essays yourself, there’s no need to worry about AI detection. But if you didn’t, review your essays with a sharp eye on specificity. Revise overly generic parts and replace them with specific moments, and phrasing only you would use.
Will my use of AI be detected? Will I be denied for using AI in my MBA application?
If you rely on AI to generate full essays, especially ones that sound flat or generic, it’s likely admissions officers will notice. Many schools don’t use formal AI detectors and don’t have a policy that bans AI. But trained readers can spot tone and pattern typical of AI. Using AI as a tool to clarify structure or brainstorm? That’s fine. Using it to shortcut authenticity? Risky.
Is it ethical to use AI to help with MBA essays?
It depends on how you use it and what the school policy is. Asking AI to help you brainstorm or suggest clearer phrasing is unlikely to be deemed unethical by any MBA program. Passing off AI-generated content as your own? That crosses the line. Ethical use adds value to your thinking but doesn’t replace your reflection, efforts, and insight.
How can I use AI without sounding like everyone else?
Be specific. Use examples only you could tell. Include details from your own life, work, or values. AI is best for helping structure and clarify your ideas, not creating them.
A parting thought
As I hit “publish” on this blog post, I worry my own message might be getting lost.
This isn’t a takedown of AI. I use it every day. I appreciate what it can do. And I know many of you are trying to use it in smart, responsible ways.
What I am saying is this: clarity and polish are no longer enough. Humanness has become the new frontier for standing out in the MBA admissions race. Use the tools. As an MBA student and a business leader, you must understand and use them, with intelligence and depth. And that’s exactly what’s needed in your MBA application too: an indication that you are not someone looking to cut corners, but someone capable of using AI with judgment, context, and nuance.
Onwards and upwards,
Petia