MBA AI-Use Policy Check Template

MBA AI-Use Policy Check: [Your name]

A per-school checklist for finding, recording and following each business school's rules on generative AI in MBA applications (essays, short answers, video essays, recommendations and interviews), and then in coursework and recruiting assessments once you are a student. Schools take different positions, some publish nothing, and policies change between cycles, so this workbook makes you read each school's own wording, write down what it allows, and keep evidence of your own writing process. It is for applicants, admitted students and the coaches or recommenders who support them. Source basis: school admissions pages, student handbooks and consulting firms' candidate pages, checked in October 2026; facts that could not be confirmed on an official page are marked "reported by secondary sources". Replace every [bracketed] value and every row marked Example. This is a planning aid, not admissions or legal advice. The school's current instructions always take precedence over anything in this template.

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Contents

1. Why this check matters
2. Kinds of AI use
3. Policy register: one row per school
4. Dated facts: what selected schools and firms publish
5. My AI-use log
6. Essays and short answers
7. Video essays and interviews
8. Recommendations
9. After admission: coursework and recruiting
10. Decision flow: is this use allowed?
11. Quality checklist
12. Common mistakes

1. Why this check matters

An MBA application asks the committee to judge how you think, what you have done and how you express yourself. Most applications end with a certification that the content is accurate and your own work, and schools treat a breach as grounds to deny admission or revoke an offer, even after enrolment. Generative AI tools make it easy to cross that line without noticing, for example by accepting a "polished" paragraph that now contains sentences you did not write.

Schools have not converged on one rule. As checked in October 2026, published positions range from allowing AI for ideas and editing but not for complete responses, through allowing AI as long as the essay stays original and in your voice, to requiring a citation when AI was used, to rules about outside help in general that do not name AI at all. Some schools publish nothing. That variety is why you need a register per school rather than one personal rule.

The same questions follow you after admission: course policies set by each instructor, honour codes, and recruiting assessments where AI use can disqualify you.

2. Kinds of AI use

The boundary between U-C and U-F matters most. Feedback says what to change; you decide how. Rewriting changes the words for you. If the final sentence is not one you composed, treat it as drafting help.

3. Policy register: one row per school

Register summary (Example), computed in calc/mba-ai-use-policy-check.py from the five example rows:

In the example, one school in five has no findable policy; most applicants meet that situation somewhere. The safe reading of silence is the school's general rule on outside help and the certification you sign, which almost always require the work to be your own. If in doubt, ask the admissions office in writing and keep the reply.

4. Dated facts: what selected schools and firms publish

Admissions policies (applications):

Columbia and Ross wording above comes from excerpts of their official pages, which could not be opened directly on 2026-10-28; read the full page before you rely on it. Other schools, including several leading US programmes, are reported in the press and by consultants to have AI rules or an AI-use question in the application, but those rules could not be confirmed on the schools' own pages in October 2026, so they are not listed here. Check the current application form of every school on your list: a disclosure question, if there is one, usually appears only inside the form.

Coursework policies (students):

Recruiting assessments (consulting, register U7):

Write any new information you find into the register in section 3, with the date.

5. My AI-use log

Keep your own drafts and version history (dated files or document history) alongside the log. They show how the text developed from your notes.

6. Essays and short answers

Working rules that satisfy the policies listed in section 4 and most others:

1. You write every sentence. Ideas, structure and evidence come from your experience; the words come from you.
2. Use AI as a reader, not a writer. Ask for questions, weaknesses and unclear points. Then fix them yourself.
3. Do not paste AI text into a draft, even temporarily. Pasted text tends to survive editing.
4. Check facts yourself. AI tools invent details about schools, courses and clubs. Verify every school fact on the school's own page (mba/mba-why-school-essay).
5. Keep your voice. Admissions readers compare essays, short answers, interviews and recommendations; a mismatch in style is noticeable.
6. Disclose when asked, accurately and briefly, using your log.

Before and after: one sentence written with feedback, not rewriting.

• Before (your first draft): "I led a project that improved things for the team and taught me a lot."
• Feedback received (U-C): "Which project? What changed, by how much, and what did you learn?"
• After (your own revision): "I led the six-week re-planning of our night-shift rota, which cut overtime by a fifth and taught me to ask the people doing the work before I redesign it."

A disclosure answer, when a school asks one, can follow this pattern (fictional, adapt to the school's limit and wording): "I used an AI assistant to ask for feedback on the structure of my first draft and a grammar checker for spelling. I wrote and revised all text myself."

7. Video essays and interviews

Video essays and interviews are designed to show how you think and communicate in real time. Practise with any tool you like beforehand (for example mock questions), then do the real recording or interview without scripts, notes generated by AI, or live assistance, unless the school's instructions explicitly allow notes. Turn off assistants and overlays on your device before you start. See mba/mba-video-essay-prep and mba/mba-interview-prep.

8. Recommendations

Recommenders usually certify that the letter is their own. When you brief them (mba/mba-recommender-brief), include the school's rule on recommendations if it has one, and offer facts and examples rather than drafted text. Never write your own letter, and never ask a recommender to submit text written by you or by an AI tool on your behalf.

9. After admission: coursework and recruiting

Coursework. Many schools leave the rules to each instructor, so the syllabus is the policy. For each course, record whether AI is allowed for preparation, for individual written work, for group work and in exams, and how to cite it. Case discussions test your own reasoning in the room; even where AI helps you prepare (mba/mba-case-prep-sheet), arrive with your own analysis.

Recruiting. Employers' online assessments and interviews are generally closed to AI assistance during the test, and consulting firms state this explicitly (section 4). Prepare with practice cases and drills (mba/mba-case-interview-prep, mba/mba-market-sizing-drills), then take the assessment alone and unaided.

10. Decision flow: is this use allowed?

When a piece goes to more than one school or course, run the flow once per destination and follow the strictest result.

11. Quality checklist

• Register row complete for this school, checked within the last 14 days and again on submission day.
• Every AI session for this piece is in the log with a use code.
• Every use is allowed by every school receiving the piece.
• No sentence in the piece was drafted or rewritten by an AI tool.
• All school facts verified on the school's own pages.
• Disclosure question answered accurately from the log.
• Recommenders told the school's rule.
• Video and interview: no scripts or live assistance; devices cleared.
• Drafts and version history saved.

12. Common mistakes

1. Assuming one rule for all schools. A use allowed by one school may breach another's policy for the same essay.
2. Reading silence as permission. No AI policy still means your certification of own work applies.
3. Accepting "light" rewrites. Rewording a paragraph is drafting help, not editing, under most policies.
4. Relying on AI for school facts. Invented course names and clubs show that you did not research the school.
5. Answering a disclosure question from memory. Use the log; vague or inaccurate answers are worse than either a simple "yes" with a description or a true "no".
6. Using last year's policy. Policies change between cycles; check the current application.
7. Scripting a video essay with AI and reading it on screen.
8. Giving a recommender an AI-drafted letter or drafting the letter yourself.
9. Using AI during an online assessment or interview for a consulting firm or employer that forbids it.
10. Forgetting coursework rules after admission. Instructors set different rules per course; the syllabus decides.
11. Deleting drafts. Your version history is the best evidence of your own process if a question arises.

Sources and further reading

• Columbia Business School: MBA Application Requirements. business.columbia.edu (checked 2026-10-28).
• Michigan Ross: Application Requirements for Full-Time MBA, and graduate programme application pages. michiganross.umich.edu (checked 2026-10-28).
• Stanford Graduate School of Business: MBA Essays. gsb.stanford.edu.
• Harvard Business School: MBA Program Handbook, 1.3.3 Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools. hbs.edu (checked 2026-10-28).
• The Wharton School: Wharton MBA Academic Policies. mba-inside.wharton.upenn.edu (checked 2026-10-28).
• McKinsey & Company: Solve, McKinsey's assessment game; Assessment Integrity Expectations. mckinsey.com/careers (checked 2026-10-28).
• Boston Consulting Group: careers pages of the office you apply to. careers.bcg.com.
• For organisational AI policies in general, see ai-data/ai-usage-policy.

Revision history

Standard and licence note

Based on the public admissions pages, student handbooks and candidate pages of the schools and firms named, as found in October 2026, which are named only to describe their published positions; facts not confirmed on an official page are labelled as reported by secondary sources. The text is original; it is not affiliated with or endorsed by any school or firm and does not reproduce any essay prompt. Check each school's current instructions before you rely on them. Template licence: MIT.