What changed
What changed in the 2026–27 prompts
Supplemental prompts move during the season — a school adds an essay, drops one, or rewrites a line. We re-verify the whole prompt database every week and log the substantive changes here, each with the date we checked it and a link to the school’s official page.
Every Friday: what changed in this week’s prompts. Nothing else.
Change log
AI Policy Index: every policy page re-read
Our re-read of all 150 schools’ AI-policy pages: 147 rows now carry September 8 as their read date; Babson, Purdue, and the University of Chicago could not be fetched that day and keep August 27. Three schools we had not been able to read are now classified (Fordham, UMass Amherst, Virginia Tech), one school we had recorded as silent now carries its published words (UNC), and three quotes were completed or extended (Bowdoin, Stony Brook, WashU). The counts moved from 7 · 35 · 2 · 103 · 3 to 7 · 36 · 5 · 102 · 0 (effectively prohibit · published guidance · commentary · no published policy · not yet verified).
Read for the first time: Fordham’s “AI Policy for Application Writing” page sends automated fetches to a login gateway, so we read it in a browser. It allows AI “in its proper place, such as brainstorming ideas or polishing a draft” and warns that manufactured content breaks the application’s narrative. Classified as published guidance; school-specific reviews, paused since August 27 because we could not read the policy, are open.
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Read for the first time (the pages blocked us on August 27): nine official admissions pages carry no rule about applicants’ use of AI; an FAQ on the Admission Decision page says the office “do[es] not use AI to evaluate or make decisions about undergraduate student applications.” Classified as commentary, with a note that it describes the office’s own use of AI; school-specific reviews are open.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Read for the first time, in a browser (the admissions site blocks automated fetches): the apply, first-year requirements, Ut Prosim short-answer, and application-policies pages carry no rule about applicants’ use of AI. The university’s news office explains that each essay is scored by one human reader and one AI reviewer, with humans making every decision. Classified as commentary, with a note that it describes Virginia Tech’s own use of AI; school-specific reviews are open.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Our August 27 read recorded UNC as publishing nothing about AI. Its admissions FAQ carries the question “Does Undergraduate Admissions use AI and why?”, describing UNC’s own use of AI to generate data points about applicants’ essays and transcripts; the page dates from August 2025, so our first read missed it. Reclassified from no published policy to commentary, with a note that it says nothing about applicants’ use of AI.
Our record of Bowdoin’s AI guidance lacked wording that is on the page: a caution that AI “can generate untrue, biased, inaccurate, and fictional content”, a fourth line under “This means” (“your submission should reflect your own thinking and style of communicating”), and a closing sentence on AI-generated writing. Quote completed; classification unchanged. We cannot tell whether the page or our record was short on August 27.
Washington University in St. Louis
Our record of WashU’s tiered FAQ was truncated: it lacked the “Always” tier (researching colleges) and a second “Sometimes” sentence (asking AI questions about the application process). Quote completed; classification unchanged, since brainstorming, drafting, and writing stay on the “Never” list.
Stony Brook’s Creative Writing footnote now continues with two sentences absent from our record: writing samples are assessed for originality and, if concerns are present, “submitted for review to an AI detector.” Quote extended; classification unchanged.
Our verification added Carleton's application deadlines, which our record had left blank: Early Decision November 15, Early Decision II and Regular Decision January 15. Two official Carleton pages print these dates; neither prints a year alongside them — the 2026/2027 mapping is ours.
Our verification found the live Architecture, Art and Planning (B.Arch) page now asks applicants to describe how their interests connect to architecture and to reflect on a creative project, design experience, or personal passion; the previous “how do your interests directly connect with your intended major” wording no longer appears. Word limit unchanged at 650.
Our verification found the live Architecture, Art and Planning (BFA / Fine Arts) page now asks for an artist statement covering artistic voice, influences, and process; the previous “coherent art practice” wording no longer appears. Word limit unchanged at 650.
Our verification found the live Architecture, Art and Planning (Urban and Regional Studies) page now asks applicants to discuss experiences, ideas, or issues that shaped their interest in cities, communities, and regional systems. Word limit unchanged at 650.
Our verification found the College of Human Ecology page now prints a 550-word limit where our record had 600. The prompt text itself is unchanged.
Our verification found three official Notre Dame pages print January 4; we corrected our record from January 2. Notre Dame prints no year alongside the date — the 2027 mapping is ours.
Our verification found three official Williams pages print January 4; we corrected our record from January 5. Early Decision (November 15) is unchanged. Williams prints no year alongside the date — the 2027 mapping is ours.
AI policies — all 150 schools
We verified every school's published AI policy. Seven prohibit AI feedback in a way that reaches what Second Read does, so we've paused reviews for those seven; each shows the school's own words on its page. Thirty-five more publish guidance we now quote directly.
Duke’s 2026-27 supplements are confirmed: two required essays — including a new Communities question — and three optional. Duke also removed its own optional question about artificial intelligence.
Stanford’s five required short questions (50 words each) are now listed — a coverage gap we had missed, now closed. Stanford shows eight prompts.
Purdue’s third “Why Purdue” question — for applicants who name an alternate major and campus — is now listed. A question we had missed on its live page, now in the database.
We updated Cornell’s second CALS question to match its live page’s current wording (“as you understand it currently”).
Indiana University Bloomington
We added the scholarship note that appears with Indiana University Bloomington’s essay prompt on its live page.
Johns Hopkins replaced its sesquicentennial prompt with a new “engaging across differences” essay (350 words), and posted dated deadlines: Early Decision I on Nov 1, Early Decision II and Regular Decision on Jan 2.
Princeton’s page now labels its questions for the 2026-27 cycle; the seven prompts are unchanged.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
We restored the opening sentences of Virginia Tech’s two short-answer prompts, correcting an earlier capture against the official page.
Duke’s 2026-27 supplements first went up, adding a required Communities essay.