AppGap

AppGap helps college applicants identify gaps in their applications and gives personalized, actionable guidance to strengthen their essays, activities, and overall application.

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Inspiration:

I was inspired by my own college application experience and how difficult it can be to tell whether an application is actually complete and telling a consistent story. Students can have strong grades, essays, and activities while still having gaps or repeating the same ideas. I wanted to build something that could look at an application as a whole and help students identify what they might be missing.

What It Does:

AppGap is an AI-powered college application coach that analyzes a student’s application to identify gaps, repetition, and opportunities to strengthen their overall story. It also provides college-specific guidance while keeping the student in control of their own writing.

How I Built It:

I built AppGap as a web application with a database for student application data and college-specific information such Common Data Set. I developed the core functionality and AI-powered analysis tools, while using Claude to help with parts of the frontend design and implementation.

Challenges I Ran Into:

One of my biggest challenges was handling the differences between colleges and their application requirements. Colleges organize their information differently, prompts change between application cycles, and some information is difficult to access automatically. I also had to make sure the AI provided useful guidance without inventing information or taking over the student’s work.

Accomplishments I’m Proud Of:

I’m proud that I took AppGap from an idea into a working product that I could actually put in front of people. I’m also proud that I kept developing AppGap beyond the competition instead of treating it as a one-time project, continuously improving it based on problems I found while building and testing it.

What I Learned

I learned that building a real product involves much more than coding. I learned how to turn a problem into usable features, work with large amounts of changing data, design responsible AI interactions, and continuously test and improve a product based on real-world problems.

What’s Next for AppGap:

I want to continue expanding AppGap’s college-specific data, improving its AI coaching, and making its application analysis more accurate and personalized. My goal is to make AppGap a tool students can actually rely on throughout the entire college application process.

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