Hey, ChatGPT: Where should I go to college?

It was September, and Rosemary Davis was feeling overwhelmed.

Her son, a high school senior interested in history and music, was beginning to apply to colleges. The admissions process had completely transformed since she was a student, and counseling at her son’s public high school in Massachusetts was “almost nonexistent,” she said.

Adrift in a new world of unfamiliar acronyms and exorbitant price tags, Davis, 48, a school librarian, turned to ChatGPT.