Problem: More students are applying to colleges with higher education demand increasing globally. As a result, college admissions are more competitive. Based on figures drawn from UCLA’s reporting to The Common Data Set, for the Class of 2022, almost 150,000 students applied to UCLA. To maintain exclusivity and because of the small capacity the college can admit, the overall acceptance rate was around 8% at that time. This has also occurred at many different elite colleges in the US. According to data from a report released by the Common App on November 1, 2022, 748,118 distinct first-year applicants had applied to 841 colleges participating in the Common App, an increase of 26% over 2019-2020. What if there was a way to help students be more prepared for college applications faster and easier?
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Solution:
A revolutionary new era in higher education is dawning, where artificial intelligence can help all students unlock their full potential and access life-changing opportunities regardless of background. Imagine having an advisor available 24/7 - one who intimately understands your unique dreams, goals, and circumstances. This is the incredible promise of AI-powered college counseling.
A college counseling AI simplifies applications by providing personalized guidance, recommendations, and resources. The AI can create customized roadmaps tailored to each individual by analyzing vast datasets. This AI will guide students step-by-step to showcase their talents and tell their stories. It would reveal insider strategies and personalized recommendations for extracurricular activities, course selection, impactful essay topics, and more.
With around-the-clock support, the AI helps students overcome information overload and the challenges of navigating expansive college options by simplifying dense information on college options, application components, and admissions processes. Drawing upon its deep knowledge base, the college counseling AI can match promising students with prospective colleges that would be the perfect fit based on their budget, academic interests, and statistics. It empowers informed decision-making by clarifying how specific schools align with the student’s goals.
Additionally, by reflecting on previous application cycles and leveraging insights from successful students, this AI advisor can generate personalized plans for each individual. Students receive targeted recommendations to optimize their chances of acceptance to their desired colleges. Whether guiding students who will be the first in their families to attend college or those aiming for elite Ivy League institutions, AI provides equal access to the expertise needed to realize these academic dreams. It will help talented students from all backgrounds maximize their potential.
This AI should have more and improved features to differentiate itself from the competition. This would include having more comprehensive datasets to leverage more extensive and more varied datasets on students, college essays, admissions outcomes, etc., to build more accurate models. It could also include virtual trial runs by creating simulated acceptance/rejection scenarios adapted to the student’s profile at each of their potential colleges and lists of recommendations for extracurriculars from data from students who are going to or are in the same intended profession/major.
This innovative AI assistant would leverage cutting-edge natural language processing techniques and models. Natural Language Processing (NLP) could be used to process and understand all the text data involved, such as student essays, school descriptions, course catalogs, etc. Other models like BERT, GPT-3, and other transformers could be fine-tuned for this data. Additionally, recommender systems, such as collaborative filtering, content-based filtering, and hybrid approaches, could suggest colleges, majors, courses, activities, etc., matching a student’s interests and academic profile. Regression models such as linear regression, logistic regression, and neural networks would be good options to predict admissions chances based on GPA, test scores, demographics, school attributes, and more. By combining cutting-edge NLP, robust recommender systems, and predictive modeling capabilities, this AI-powered advisor would provide data-driven, personalized guidance to help students navigate the complex admissions process and unlock their full academic potential.
The AI could gather data from different sources to improve its recommendations and predictions. This data would include college admissions data about statistics on acceptance rates, enrolled student profiles, demographics, etc., that colleges make publicly available or sell through data providers. Other ways could be from accepted students who voluntarily provide the data to the app. Furthermore, data could be pulled from university course catalogs, federal datasets, companies such as CollegeBoard and ACT, and more.
Monetization: This AI could profit from subscription services to users with monthly fees. Other potential ways could be from school and college partnerships to provide counseling services to all students. There could also be premium add-ons where users get essential services for free but can pay extra for exclusive or more features. According to College Wise, private college counseling can range between $2,000 - $20,000, meaning that parents and students are willing to pay hundreds to thousands to help get into a college. This app could provide less expensive services that are readily available.
Determining the monthly subscription price requires analyzing several factors: value provided, competitor pricing, production costs, and volume.
Potential competitive pricing could be:
Basic: Free
Standard: $99/mo
Premium: $149/mo
Professional: $199/mo
For institutional Pricing, a per-student rate of around $40-$60 per month for school districts buying at large volume could work.
Competitors: Several different companies use a similar model of AI college counseling. These include companies such as “Scoir,” which uses AI to give students personalized recommendations on colleges, majors, and testing based on their profile, and “CollegeVine,” which offers AI-driven mentorships for every step of the application process and general or specialized counseling packages. Depending on the service, these companies might charge around $150-$200 monthly.
Contributed by: Kenneth Pham (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas Intern)
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