enerative AI to write or edit their initial application essays. Applicants are asked to write essays about their experiences with underrepresentation, discrimination, and systemic bias. Outreachy organizers do not judge the writing style, grammar or spelling used in essays. Instead, the essays are reviewed for their expression of the applicant's lived experience with underrepresentation, discrimination, and systemic bias.</p>

  <p>Only the applicant can accurately and authentically write about their own li