A day in the life of a prospective college student using AI in their search
Let’s begin with an imagined student experience, informed by insights from thousands of real student journeys.
I didn’t wake up thinking about college planning, but it’s always just…there now.
On the bus this morning, I got an email from a college I remember researching a few weeks ago. I found them during one of my late-night searches: “computer engineering, in state, good financial aid, not impossible to get into.”
I’m doing the best I can to pick a college that won’t cost too much. I don’t know our exact income. I just know my parents keep saying, “We have to be smart about cost.”
In study hall, I opened the same college planning chat I’ve been using for a while. I’m not some AI genius. I just use it like everyone else does. I’ll type things like:
“What’s the best place for me, if I want to stay close to home, if I’m into engineering, I care more about academics than parties, but I need scholarships.”
It gives me a whole list way faster than I could build one myself. It’s just…easy. Easier than talking to my counselor, honestly.
One of the schools the AI chat suggested a month ago is on my serious list now, which is wild because I had never heard of it before.
I don’t blindly trust AI. I’ve seen it get details wrong, like mixing up deadlines or saying a school requires something when it doesn’t, so I always double-check the actual website.
I feel split about AI in general. It’s helpful, but it can sound too confident and still be wrong. Teachers are constantly talking about using it “the right way,” especially for essays. I’ll have it point out grammar issues or help me organize my thoughts, but I try to rewrite everything because I don’t want my personal statement sounding like a robot wrote it.
At lunch, my friend was stressed about choosing between two colleges, and it made me look at my own list again. I went back to my AI chat to ask more about schools on my list…graduation rates, average debt, how easy it is to switch majors. One school dropped in my mind after that. I didn’t delete it, it just didn’t feel like a sure thing anymore.
After practice, I asked AI what it’s really like at a campus that keeps showing up in my Instagram ads. It pulled together student reviews and described the vibe and workload. Honestly, the AI results didn’t match what I saw in the ads.
Sometimes I go bigger and ask whether AI is going to change engineering jobs by the time I graduate. Part of me is excited about tech. Part of me is stressed that everything is shifting so fast. I don’t want to choose a major and then realize it isn’t important anymore.
I still talk to my parents about college options. I still scroll actual college websites. Visiting in person will probably matter more than anything.
But if it’s 10:47 p.m. and I suddenly think of a question, this is where I go. It’s not replacing real people. It’s just the first stop while I figure this out on my own.
Students interact with AI more frequently than we realize
This student is fictional, but her story is increasingly typical.
She represents a growing share of students who are integrating AI into the daily rhythm of their college search. It is at once a rich source of information and an easy listener, and it is always available. As college consultant Jennifer Jessie shared with Marketplace, “I try to turn to humans, but humans are not always accessible, and AI is.”
If you map our fictional student’s day, the touchpoints add up quickly. AI filters her search results, influences what appears first, summarizes academic programs, helps her refine her list, reviews her writing, and clarifies requirements she finds confusing.
Over the course of a week, students may interact with dozens or even hundreds of AI-enabled systems, often before colleges initiate contact. That sequencing matters. Early discovery and evaluation are increasingly shaped by AI-generated summaries, rankings, and comparisons, prompting a shift in how institutions must think about their digital presence and communication strategies.
We recently surveyed more than 5,000 students to better understand how they perceive and use AI because its influence is already reshaping enrollment behavior and, in turn, the environment our partners operate in. We learned that:
- Nearly half of students report using AI in their college search
- AI usage has surged dramatically over the past year
- More than half of students say AI has made college search easier
- One in four students describe having an ongoing conversation with AI about their options
AI as an advisor in college search
AI has moved beyond basic chat functionality to become a meaningful thought partner in decision-making. Students are not just checking deadlines—they are comparing academic programs, weighing cost against selectivity, exploring scholarship pathways, and testing institutional fit.
At the same time, students remain cautious about AI. They recognize that AI can be inaccurate, so they verify details and revise its outputs. Even with that skepticism, they continue to rely on it because it offers immediate, low-pressure guidance in a process that often feels complex and overwhelming.
What this all means, though, is that by the time a student engages directly with your institution, early perceptions may already be shaped by the information AI has surfaced.
Actions for enrollment leaders
For enrollment teams, this raises a critical question: what is AI learning about you?
AI systems draw from institutional websites, program pages, financial aid content, and other digital signals. If that information is unclear, outdated, or inconsistent, AI will not correct it; if anything, it will scale it. Discovery is happening earlier, evaluation is accelerating, and students are increasingly comfortable letting AI inform both exploration and execution.
Go deeper on how students are using AI
Our new insight paper explores these patterns in greater detail, sharing findings from more than 5,000 high school students on where they use AI, how much they trust it, and how it influences real enrollment decisions.
The data makes one thing clear: AI is not a future trend when it comes to college search. It is a real-time advisor influencing your prospective students today.The question is not whether students will use AI; it is whether institutions are ready for the role AI is already playing.
Download and read the full insight paper here: How Students View and Use AI in College Search.
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