What Happens When Students Ask AI Where to Apply to College?
by Claire L. Brady
If you still think AI is a back-end operational issue in higher education, think again.
According to Johanna Alonso’s recent article in Inside Higher Ed, students (and their parents) are increasingly turning to tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT to decide where to apply to college. Not to write their essays. Not to cheat. But to choose you.
Let that sink in.
AI is now sitting at the front door of your enrollment funnel.
In the article, one parent used ChatGPT to help her daughter refine her college list based on “vibe,” selectivity, and fit. The AI suggested schools with higher admit rates that aligned with her criteria—and even encouraged an early decision application. Nearly half of high school students, according to EAB research cited in the piece, are now using AI in their college search process.
This isn’t a trend. It’s a shift in behavior.
There Are No Blue Links Anymore
Traditional search sends students to your website. AI keeps them inside the conversation.
There are no blue links. No careful navigation of your admissions page. No guarantee they’ll ever see the content you’ve spent months polishing.
Instead, students are asking:
“What are affordable Christian colleges in the South with strong job outcomes?”
“What’s the vibe at midsize campuses with strong nursing programs?”
“Where do I have a realistic shot at admission with a 3.4 GPA?”
If your institution doesn’t surface in those conversations, you may not even know you were excluded.
That’s where answer engine optimization (AEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO) come in. But before you rush to hire a consultant, pause.
This is not just a marketing problem. It’s a clarity problem.
Three Strategic Moves for Higher Ed Leaders
If you’re a president, provost, VPSA, or VP for enrollment, here’s where I’d start:
1. Audit Your AI Visibility
Open ChatGPT. Open Claude. Open whatever your students are using.
Run 10 searches as if you are a prospective student:
Your top academic program
Your institutional identity (religious, regional, mission-driven)
Your differentiators (affordability, internships, job placement)
Are you mentioned? Are you described accurately? Are outdated pages being surfaced?
If you don’t know how AI describes your institution, you’re operating blind.
2. Tighten Your Institutional Language
One example in the article stood out: an institution used both “Christian” and “Christ-centered” interchangeably. That inconsistency may reduce AI visibility.
AI models rely on patterns and probabilities. If your messaging is diffuse, your visibility will be too.
Ask:
Are our value propositions stated clearly and repeatedly?
Are our program strengths described in concrete, comparable language?
Do we use the same terminology across admissions, academics, and marketing?
Clarity is not just branding. It’s discoverability.
3. Don’t Abandon the Human Layer
There’s tension here.
College access has always been deeply relational. AI can parse data, but it cannot replace trust. It cannot sit across from a first-generation student and ask the right follow-up question.
Your opportunity is not to compete with AI—but to integrate it responsibly.
Consider:
Training admissions counselors to use AI to supplement advising
Creating AI-informed FAQs based on real student queries
Developing your own internal AI tools trained on verified institutional data
AI is a co-pilot, not a counselor.
A Leadership Question
If AI is now part of how students find you, compare you, and evaluate you—who on your campus owns that strategy?
Marketing? IT? Enrollment? Cabinet? Or no one?
This is not about chasing hype. It’s about ensuring that when a student asks, “Where should I go to college?” your institution is accurately represented in the room—even if that room is a chatbot window.
Students are already there. The question is whether you are.
Read the full IHE article here: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/artificial-intelligence/2026/02/13/reach-students-college-marketers-prioritize
