What is the name of your organization?
Athena AI
What is the name of your solution?
AI College Application Coach
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Trained on thousands of successful applications, Athena gives students access to 24/7, personalized, support in their college application journey.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Reno, NV, USA
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
United States
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
One of the key barriers to long-term student success and social mobility is access to higher education. And yet, the college application process remains confusing and frustrating for students and parents alike. The average public school counselor serves over 400 students by themself — and as such, many students cannot get the individualized and timely attention they need. While more affluent students pay private consultants an average of $200 per hour, this opportunity is not afforded to the vast majority. This affects the 4M U.S. high school graduates every year.
What is your solution?
Solution: Athena addresses this by giving students instant AI feedback on their college application essays, the most important and time-consuming part of their application. Using specialized AI models trained on thousands of successful application essays, Athena served 2% of ALL college-bound U.S. high school seniors last year and 26,000 students in 150+ countries. To be clear, we do not write anything for students — we only provide feedback — and are strictly compliant with university policies.
Technology:
We first gathered thousands of successful essays that got students into top universities. From there, we used a process our CEO developed after his time studying AI at Caltech, called Machine Learning Squared. I will go into detail on this in a later question.
When a student comes to our platform, they enter in a rough draft of their essay. In 30 seconds, Athena evaluates their essay and gives them 2+ pages of feedback. From there, students take what they like, and use that information to rewrite their essay. They can repeat this revision/feedback cycle and see their essay improve with the help of 24/7 data-driven AI coaching. See a 3-minute demo here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwQ4bV5IhWQ
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Low-income students lack access to guidance in the college application process. Their only resource is their school counselor, who is responsible for 400+ other students. Athena puts a personalized tool in the hands of these students to help them master the persuasive writing skills demanded of them by a college application essay. Imagine if every student in the U.S. had their own 24/7 college application coach to handhold them.
