Virginia Tech Uses AI to Grade Application Essays in Under an Hour

Virginia Tech just changed the game for college admissions. The university announced it’s using AI to score application essays-processing thousands in under an hour. That’s not a typo.

If you’re applying to Virginia Tech (or wondering which schools might follow), here’s about this shift and how to prepare your application for an AI-first review process.

What Virginia Tech Is Actually Doing

Virginia Tech partnered with an AI vendor to analyze supplemental essays during the 2024-2025 admissions cycle. The system scores essays on criteria like coherence, relevance to the prompt, and writing quality. Human reviewers still make final decisions, but AI handles the initial screening.

The numbers are striking. What previously took admissions staff weeks now happens in 45-60 minutes. For a school receiving over 45,000 applications annually, that’s a massive efficiency gain.

But efficiency isn’t the whole story.

Why This Matters for Your Application

AI grading systems work differently than human readers. They excel at detecting certain patterns:

1. Prompt adherence - Does your essay actually answer what was asked? 2. Structural clarity - Can the system identify your thesis and supporting points? 3. Grammar and mechanics - Spelling errors, sentence fragments, punctuation issues

What AI struggles with:

• Subtle humor or irony
• Cultural references that require context
• Unconventional narrative structures that pay off at the end
• Deeply personal stories that don’t follow standard essay templates

This doesn’t mean you should write boring, formulaic essays. But you need to be strategic.

How to Write Essays That Work for AI and Humans

Step 1: Answer the Prompt Directly in Your First Paragraph

AI systems weight your opening heavily. Don’t bury your main point.

Weak opening: “Growing up, I always wondered about the nature of things around me. My grandmother used to say that curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Stronger opening: “I discovered my passion for biomedical engineering at 14, watching my diabetic grandfather struggle with outdated insulin delivery systems. That frustration drove me to design a prototype pump interface for my school’s science fair.

The second version signals your topic, shows specificity, and connects to Virginia Tech’s engineering focus immediately.

Step 2: Use Clear Paragraph Transitions

AI models parse structure through transition signals. Each paragraph should connect logically to the next.

Effective transitions:

• “This experience taught me… "
• “Building on that foundation… "
• “The real test came when… "
• “What I hadn’t expected was…

Avoid choppy, disconnected paragraphs. Even if your human reader would understand the connection, AI might score structural coherence lower.

Step 3: Vary Your Sentence Length

Here’s something interesting. AI writing detectors-which admissions AI might incorporate-flag essays with uniform sentence length as potentially machine-generated.

Mix it up - short sentences punch. Longer sentences allow you to develop more complex ideas and demonstrate sophisticated thinking about interconnected concepts. Medium-length sentences fill the gaps between.

Read your essay aloud. If every sentence takes the same number of breaths, revise.

Step 4: Include Specific, Verifiable Details

AI systems can detect vague, generic content. Specificity scores higher.

Vague: “I participated in many leadership activities in high school.”

Specific: “As president of the 47-member Robotics Club, I managed a $3,200 budget and coordinated our team’s first regional competition appearance since 2019.”

Numbers, dates, names, places-these details signal authentic experience.

Step 5: Proofread for Technical Errors

This sounds obvious - it isn’t. AI catches every typo, every misplaced comma, every their/there/they’re confusion. Human readers might forgive one or two errors in an otherwise compelling essay. AI scoring systems typically penalize mechanically.

Run your essay through multiple tools:

• Standard spellcheck (catches obvious errors)
• Grammarly or similar (catches grammar and punctuation)
• Read it backwards sentence by sentence (catches errors your brain auto-corrects)

Then have another human read it. Fresh eyes catch what you’ve missed.

What About Authenticity?

Here’s the tension: you want to improve for AI scoring without losing your genuine voice.

The good news - these goals aren’t mutually exclusive. AI systems at the sophistication level universities deploy can usually distinguish between authentic, well-structured writing and formulaic content. They’re trained on millions of essays and can detect when something reads like a template.

Your best strategy: write authentically first, then revise for clarity and structure second.

Don’t start with a formula - start with your actual story. Then make sure that story is clearly told, well-organized, and technically clean.

Red Flags That Might Hurt Your AI Score

Based on how these systems typically work, avoid:

1. Opening with a quote - Overused and often disconnected from the rest of the essay
2. Dictionary definitions - “Webster’s defines leadership as… " immediately signals weak writing
3. Excessive passive voice - “The project was completed by me” scores lower than “I completed the project”
4. Thesaurus abuse - Using “use” instead of “use” or “help” instead of “help” reads as artificially inflated

Should You Use AI to Write Your Essay?

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: admissions AI is increasingly trained to detect AI-generated content. Universities are in an arms race here. If Virginia Tech is sophisticated enough to deploy AI grading, they’re sophisticated enough to deploy AI detection.

Beyond detection risk, AI-written essays tend toward the generic. They lack the specific, weird, personal details that make essays memorable. An essay about your grandmother’s insulin pump that you built in your garage is more compelling than a perfectly structured but generic essay about “overcoming challenges.

Use AI as a tool if you want-for brainstorming, for catching errors, for getting feedback on clarity. But the core content and voice should be yours.

How to Check If Your Essay Works

Before submitting, run this checklist:

• First paragraph directly addresses the prompt
• Each paragraph has a clear purpose
• Sentence lengths vary throughout
• Specific details appear in every major section
• Zero spelling or grammar errors
• Essay sounds like you when read aloud
• Someone unfamiliar with your story can follow it

If you check all boxes, you’ve written an essay that works for both AI and human readers.

The Bigger Picture

Virginia Tech won’t be the last school to adopt AI grading. As application volumes grow and admissions budgets stay flat, more universities will follow.

This isn’t necessarily bad. AI can reduce bias that creeps into human review-fatigue at the end of a long reading day, unconscious preferences, inconsistent standards between reviewers.

But it does change the game. Essays that might have charmed a tired human reader at 11 PM now need to pass algorithmic scrutiny first.

Adapt accordingly - write clearly. Write specifically - write authentically.

And proofread - seriously, proofread.