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By Caroline Diarte Edwards, Fortuna Admissions – the dream team of former admissions directors from the world's top schools
If you're preparing a business school application right now, you might be thinking about how to leverage AI: whether to use it, how much, and what the schools actually allow. As someone who spent years as Director of Admissions at INSEAD reviewing thousands of files, I'll give you the direct answer: the picture is more complicated than most applicants realize, and while it can sometimes be a helpful tool, getting it wrong can carry real consequences.
MBA essays are where admissions committees encounter you as a person – your reasoning, your voice, and your specific story. The unique details that only you could have written are what move the needle for admissions teams. So, before you decide how AI may fit into your process, it's worth understanding exactly what each school requires, accepts, or allows.
If you're at the early stages of your application, Fortuna’s MBA Application Jumpstart service pairs you with an admissions insider to develop the storytelling foundations and strategic clarity your application will depend on.
AI Policies at Top MBA Programs
The table below draws directly from each school's official application materials. Read the language carefully – in some cases, non-compliance can result in revocation of admission. (Note: MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, and INSEAD had not published AI-specific policies for applicants at the time this article was written.)
| School | School's Guidance on AI Usage |
| Harvard Business School | Have you utilized AI in completing the application? Note, the use of AI is permitted; however, you should not claim AI output as your own independent work, and you should always verify the quality of concepts and content that you develop through the use of generative AI tools. If you select 'yes' you are prompted with: In accordance with HBS student policy, you must cite your sources. Please indicate below in what manner you have utilized AI in completing this application, and in which sections. (75 words max) |
| Stanford GSB | It is improper and a violation of the terms of this application process to have another person or tool write your essays. Such behavior will result in denial of your application or revocation of your admission. |
| Wharton | The Wharton School of Business embraces the use of generative AI technology and sees it as an important tool for business leaders in this rapidly changing world. While we believe that generative AI will continue to provide utility to all students, your work contained within this application must be your own. We recommend applicants treat generative AI as you would the guidance or writings of another person – as it is unacceptable to have another person substantially complete a task like writing an admissions essay, it is also unacceptable to have AI substantially complete the task. The Wharton School requires that the work in your application must be completely accurate and exclusively your own, and may use its own proprietary and/or licensed AI solutions in order to identify AI-authored elements of applications. Any such flagging will result in a more holistic investigation of an application. |
| Columbia Business School | Columbia Business School requires that the work contained in your application (including essays) is completely accurate and exclusively your own. Columbia University permits the use of generative AI tools for idea generation and/or to edit a candidate's work; however, using these tools to generate complete responses violates the Honor Code. |
| Northwestern Kellogg | Generative AI can be a powerful aid in crafting an essay, but it should be used as a supplementary tool rather than a replacement for your own effort and creativity. If you choose to use generative AI in your essays, do so with integrity to ensure you provide genuine insights and reflections. You should also cite the use of generative AI by referencing the tool at the conclusion of your essay (Name of Tool, URL). |
| NYU Stern | Your essays should be written entirely by you. An offer of admission will be revoked if you did not write your essays. |
| Yale SOM | Your application should reflect your true abilities, experiences, and aspirations. We advise you to employ AI only in ways that support, not compromise, the authenticity and originality of your submission. If you choose to use AI assistance for written materials, approach it the same way you would ask a friend or colleague for help in brainstorming topics, organizing thoughts, providing feedback, or offering input on grammar, style, and other minor edits. AI-generated content shouldn't be the primary source of your essay content. Your own voice and ideas should be at the forefront. If you are considering using AI tools to script the spoken components of your application – in a word: don't. Our video questions and interview are intended to create spontaneous opportunities for you to articulate yourself. Reading from a script or relying heavily on notes never goes well, and it won't go well in your video questions or interview either. |
| Michigan Ross | Ross graduate admissions recognizes the appropriate use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools for providing guidance and suggestions. If you use Artificial Intelligence (AI) software in the creation of your essay answers, you are required to use the APA in-text citation "Personal Communication." Rule: (Communicator, personal communication, Month Date, Year); example: (OpenAI, personal communication, September 1, 2024). |
| Duke Fuqua | All essays are scanned using plagiarism detection software. Expressing your ideas by using verbiage from existing sources, including websites and other applicants' essays or materials, or having someone else compose your essays, without properly crediting those sources, constitutes an act of plagiarism. Plagiarism, an act of theft and fraud, is considered a cheating violation within the Honor Code and will result in an application denial. If you have worked with a consultant or used any form of Generative AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT) to support the completion of your application materials, the expectation is that the work submitted is authentically yours and is a true and factual reflection of who you are and what you have experienced. Falsely representing yourself or providing misleading information in any part of the application is considered an honor code violation. |
| London Business School | If you use Artificial Intelligence (AI) software to help you, this must be referenced as a footnote to the essay, (not included in the word count). |
| Oxford Saïd | Your essays should be your own work and may be checked using plagiarism detection software as part of the admissions process. If you are including information in your essays that you did not author, for example, quoting from an article, please use appropriate citations and footnotes (these are excluded from the word count). |
At a Glance: How These Policies Break Down
Reading across these policies, three approaches emerge: schools that require active disclosure, schools that screen for AI-generated content, and schools that prohibit it outright.
Schools Requiring AI Disclosure or Citation
| School | What's Required |
| Harvard Business School | Dedicated yes/no checkbox; if yes, must describe how AI was used and in which sections (75-word limit) |
| London Business School | Reference AI tools in a footnote to the essay (footnote excluded from word count) |
| Michigan Ross | Must use APA in-text 'Personal Communication' citation – e.g., (OpenAI, personal communication, September 1, 2024) |
| Northwestern Kellogg | Cite the AI tool at the conclusion of the essay – Name of Tool, URL |
Schools That State They May Use AI or Plagiarism Screening
| School | Screening Policy |
| Duke Fuqua | All essays scanned with plagiarism detection software |
| Oxford Saïd | Essays may be checked using plagiarism detection software |
| Wharton | May use proprietary and/or licensed AI solutions to identify AI-authored content; flagged applications face holistic investigation |
Schools with AI Content Prohibitions
| School | Policy |
| Stanford GSB | Having any person or tool write essays is an explicit violation; application denied or admission revoked |
| NYU Stern | Essays must be written entirely by the applicant; offer of admission will be revoked otherwise |
How You Can Use AI in Your Application
There are legitimate ways to bring AI into your process without crossing the lines schools have drawn. Here are a few key ways AI can assist in the application process:
Research. AI is a reasonable place to start when you're getting oriented on programs. The catch: these tools fabricate information with confidence, and a hallucinated statistic or outdated fact in your essays will undermine your credibility. If you use AI for research, treat everything it produces as unverified: cross-check against the school's official site, current program materials, and people who've been through the process recently.
Brainstorming. If you're staring at a blank page, AI can help you generate potential angles for your story. You won't submit this output, but you're legitimately using it to get unstuck.
Resume formatting. A business school resume has specific conventions for formatting, length, and how accomplishments are framed, and getting it right manually is tedious. AI handles that legwork well, which frees you up to focus on the substance: what you've done, how you frame it, and what sets you apart.
Logic testing. Paste your career narrative into a conversation and ask where the reasoning feels thin, or what questions a skeptical reader might raise. This can also help you anticipate interview questions.
Identifying gaps and inconsistencies. AI tools can flag mismatching dates between your resume and application form, or places where you've made an assumption the reader can't follow.
Grammar and clarity. Light editing support, like tightening wordy sentences, catching errors, and suggesting alternatives for awkward phrasing, is a reasonable use of the tools.
Where AI Will Work Against You
There are two areas where leaning on AI is likely to hurt your application: the strategic thinking that shapes it, and the writing that brings it to life.
Don't use AI to define your application strategy or key messages. Before a single essay is written, the most important work is figuring out what your application is actually about: which experiences define you, what connects your past to your goals, what a particular school's committee needs to understand about you that they won't find anywhere else in your file. This requires genuine self-knowledge, and AI cannot replicate it.
Almost anyone can get a coherent-sounding career story out of an AI tool. The problem is that coherent isn't necessarily compelling, and generic definitely isn't you. What admissions committees at top programs are actually reading for is evidence of a real person – someone with genuine self-awareness who has thought carefully about why this school, why now, and why them. That kind of clarity comes from honest reflection. There’s no way around that.
Don't use AI to write or heavily edit your essays. Even where school policies technically permit AI assistance, heavily AI-assisted essays tend to fall flat for several reasons.
- Voice inconsistency. AI-generated sections are likely to create style shifts across your application package. Schools also notice differences between how candidates communicate on paper versus in interviews and video responses. Discrepancies raise flags.
- Generic insights. AI is pattern-trained on MBA application content. When asked to reflect on a failure or articulate career goals, it produces recognizable formulations, such as the failure that taught resilience, the goal that involves creating impact at scale. These appear frequently in training data and are not specific to you.
- Missing detail. The specificity that makes a story memorable – the exact conversation, the actual moment, the precise thing that changed – is something AI cannot generate.
- Recognizable prose patterns. AI writing has characteristic tendencies that experienced admissions readers have become well-attuned to identifying.
Your Story is the Strategy
The feedback from admissions offices is consistent: committees are seeing increasing volumes of AI-generated content, and the increase has not been especially helpful to candidates. Your story and your voice are incredible assets and it’s in your best interest not to undermine them with AI. You can use AI to organize your thoughts, stress-test your logic, or catch the typo you’ve read past twelve times. But the story itself – what you’ve built, what you’ve learned, what you’re going after – has to come from you.
In the end, getting into a top program takes a clear, honest account of who you are and where you're going. Fortuna's coaches are former admissions directors from the world's top business schools. If you want experienced eyes on your story before you submit, schedule a free consultation here.
