Your essay is yours.
Colleges want to hear your voice. Never submit an essay an AI wrote. If you use AI at all, follow each college's rules, and when they ask you to disclose, do it.
The rules aren't the same everywhere
Colleges set their own rules on AI in applications, and they differ. Some are adding disclosure: in August 2026, NBC News reported that a Cornell spokesperson said that beginning in fall 2027, applicants will have to disclose any support they received while completing their application, including the use of AI technology.
What to check before you start
- Each college's own guidance on AI, on its admissions website.
- The application platform's rules, if you use one.
- Whether you must disclose any help you got.
- Your school counselor, if anything is unclear.
Brainstorm, then sort your ideas
Where it's allowed, AI can help you think: ask it questions about your experiences, what you care about, the moments that changed your mind. The ideas are yours. The problem is that after an hour, they're scattered through a long chat, mixed with suggestions you didn't like.
Before you write a word, sort them:
- The stories you want to tell.
- What you decided to leave out, and why.
- What doesn't fit together: two angles that pull in different directions.
Sort them with Memo, in Uncook
Uncook's Memo reads the brainstorm chat and gives you a clear document: what's decided, what changed along the way, what was set aside and what doesn't add up. On the ChatGPT page, click the Uncook icon and pick Memo.
It doesn't write your essay. It helps you see your own ideas clearly, so you can write it yourself. The task cost is shown in the tool box below. Export it to PDF, Markdown, text or Word.
Questions people ask
Can I use ChatGPT to write my college essay? Don't. Check each college's rules on AI, and write the essay yourself.
Should I keep my brainstorm chats? It's a good idea, especially if a college asks you to disclose the help you got. Export can save them as PDF.
Does Uncook check my essay? No. It reads your chats. It doesn't grade, score or rewrite anything you'll submit.
Start fresh,
without starting over.
Add to Chrome
We don't keep the conversations you bring. When you click Send to Uncook in the extension window, the extension sends the chat from your tab to our servers, encrypted, for up to 30 minutes, and we delete it as soon as your Uncook page opens it. What Uncook makes from it is kept as a task, for as long as our Privacy page says. Neither your chats nor your tasks are used to train AI models.