atCollege

Support for high school seniors applying to colleges and universities in the United States via online platforms, applications, and personal assistance. 

According to http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372, about 3.3 million students graduate high school, and about 66% of them enroll in college immediately in the fall. So, all of them needed information to prepare for the application process, but sometimes it might be difficult.
I want to solve the problem for millions of high schoolers around the world. It is the problem of a lack of knowledge in the sphere of future education. Particularly in the construction of foundations for universities and colleges, because many students want to get into the best universities but don't know where to begin.
This issue is especially relevant in Kazakhstan, as people there don't have the opportunity to meet U.S. college students or visit these universities on their own.
Therefore, many talented and well-educated students are unaware of U.S. universities or are too scared to apply because the application process might seem difficult for them. At this point, thousands of great students are not applying and are wasting their possible chances for a better education.

My current solution is a site where students can get the latest information about different activities and opportunities such as global hackathons, pre-college programs, coding schools, etc. This information is being regularly updated by administrators who do the research on the Internet. Also, data is being collected through other sources of information, for example, the Instagram accounts of governmental organizations (EducationUSA).

Furthermore, I am still working on the group chats about different spheres of education, such as scholarships, exams, and the whole process of application. In these group chats people can share opinions, help each other, and prepare together.But nowadays, there are present links to the similar chats in another social network(Telegram).

In the future I plan to make the preparation for these exams in the game form, with leaders board and points in order to make the process more interesting and fascinating.

 I am working to help high school students (especially from Central Asia) who suffer from a lack of information. Most of the students who actively engage with all of the possible opportunities are from private schools or from schools that are sponsored by some fund (for example, Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools). So, these students are getting a lot of information from their school counselors and other school staff, while regular schools don't even have school counselors.

Generally, I mean that people from regular schools are unaware of the possibility of applying for different programs. Therefore, they limit themselves, even though their profiles and achievements are sufficient to apply to universities outside of their home country.

My solution could be shared with the local government, educational centers, and even school administrations, so they could at least tell students about this brand new source of help for them. I can say that I needed some kind of first step in order to decide whether to prepare for the application process or not, and it was the information that I was getting from different sources, but I just needed one to begin this path of thinking about it. So these students also need it to start their own journey.

Our team consists of 3 persons. A person from my school who does create mobile apps; my friend from Nazarbayev University, who is responsible for finances and communications; Me - who tries to analyze all of the different sources of information, provide new ideas, write code, and find new opportunities.

The person from my school earned 2nd place in the republican contest of projects by Computer Science, and she also is applying for the universities this year(senior);

My friend is in the best university in our country, so he already went through the process of application(university freshman)

I have analyzed over 13 sources (group chats) in a social network app (Telegram) and found out the bare needs of the users of my solution.

Links: @collegehub; @worldabroad; @satprepare_chat; @justrinat; @grantscholar; @sat_tests_for_free; @edugrant_kg; @grants_scholarships; @theresources; @LastingPeace1.

I also received assistance from the EducationUSA Kazakhstan Summer Camp through group chat, where I could see all of the information that students frequently searched for or asked others about.

Through all of this, I could clearly see the main needs and all of the aspects that should be included. After that, I created a prototype, which was tested by multiple students of my age, and they were happy to use it as it was enough for them as a starting point.

It is innovative in all ways, as there are not too many places where students can find everything in just one place.

Many 9th graders are coming to the age when you have to start preparing for your application. Along with that, current seniors have to start or complete their applications, so all of these things are present in just one place. Isn't this fantastic news for all of the applicants?

I would say that it will also be an attractive proposal, as many of them are paying a lot of money for other side companies to help them, while many other students have to spend their own time on individual research for opportunities. Both of these groups lose: first one, money; second, time.

We are planning to get more than 10 thousand downloads of our application in the next half of the year and get more than 500 students on personal assistance. But all of this is attainable only if we develop an application. Next, we are planning to reconstruct the site and make it an advertisement place for our application that is going to be developed in the next month.

At this point, if we have 500 students, we need around 50–80 teachers, so we will develop a great economic strategy where we divide income between teachers and our company. This provides new working places for a lot of talented teachers around the globe.

In the next year, we will already accompany seniors and wait for answers from universities. Our primary goal is to admit at least 200 students to the University of the United States. 

Our main technology is going to be an application with all of the information listed above and personal assistance through Zoom calls. Right now, our site is built in low-code, but we plan to make it better very soon.

10 thousand users of application and 500 people on personal assistance

Financial -  we need money to buy domen for the site and support it, because we have to hire people who are going to be responsible for this. Furthermore, we need to buy online cloud storage in order to save information from users and other information.

Time: in order to create a better site and mobile application, we need more time. Also, we need time to communicate with officials about the integration of our project.

Technical - our solution still needs improvements and recommendations, which we could get from this program!

We are planning to cooperate with EducationUSA in order to provide our application through them. Also, we are going to communicate with schools around the globe, so all of the students can actually see the information.

Our key customers are students. Even when you show students the opportunities and possible outcomes of participating (for example, in summer school or in an exchange program), many students are scared of losing. At this point, personal assistance is available to help students understand the main goals of this program and what they should do in order to be confident in their actions. We cannot write essays for them, but we can assist them by tutoring exam preparation, training them how to properly write essays, and showing them how to correctly fill out the applications. On top of that, our tutors can literally teach how to study better and be a better applicant, so eventually their dream will come true.

For the first time, we will offer a free first meeting and then try to find out if they really want to continue the personal assistance program. Meetings are going to be online (via Zoom), so no waste of money on calls.

All of the courses of personal assistance will depend on the subject.

As I mentioned earlier, we are planning to cooperate with the local government and regularly get donations and grants because education is one of the most topical issues around the world. Thus, when we show great results, they are most likely to support it as much as possible. In addition, we intend to promote it through EducationUSA so that not only governments but also other companies interested in this field can see it. I would say that financial support for this project is inevitable.