Pressure to use AI for college admissions: implications for adolescent self-concept and intelligent coaching design

US adolescents are readily adopting general-purpose large language models (LLMs), powered by artificial intelligence (AI), to write college application essays. However, our understanding of applicant AI use patterns and motivations for this task and AI’s impact on self-concept development is limited. In interviews with 20 recent US college applicants, adolescents report feeling pressured to use AI to write essays to compete in an opaque process with peers who they suspect are using it for drafting essays. Most students, especially those who lack expert guidance turn to AI for feedback on all aspects of their writing (e.g., word choice, content, structure) to offload effort when strapped for time and to generate what they perceive as higher-quality text and recognize that AI prevents them from important self-concept development, a skill necessary for future opportunity-seeking (e.g., future job interviews). We contribute a qualitative analysis of applicant AI use patterns and motivations when writing college application essays and discuss implications for designing intelligent systems to coach self-concept development through writing.