applyMD

Inspiration ApplyMD — the Why & the How

Every year 100-plus K people gear up for med-school apps. They drop tens of thousands on MCAT prep, counselors, fees…despite dropping that cash, they are stuck with disparate forums, google sheets, and no real source of truth. I’ve helped friends, and my partner, through that mess and practically built them a custom-med-student OS.

I’ve seen the process up close and have always wanted to build something great to solve it. The best that the market has to offer is legacy, fragmented tools that - frankly - make peoples lives harder.

What It Does (right now)

Stage Feature Why I care Scout Blazing-fast school table + filters + map view Find realistic targets in seconds, not hours Deep-dive Rich profiles (GPA/MCAT ranges, tuition, prompts) Stop bouncing between 20 tabs Short-list 1-click “Add to My Schools” pipeline + notes + manage statuses Keeps me organized without another sheet Compare Side-by-side view Data-driven, no gut-feel guessing Write with an inline AI editor Drop an essay → instant AI feedback (one paragraph + three fixes) Kills writer’s block Interview prep with AI AI mock interview powered by Tavus video + OpenAI scoring Practice without scheduling a human Resource Hub In-built forum and community (this feature needs a lot of work) ⌘ K palette Global search / quick actions Feels like a real SaaS, not a hackathon toy

How I Built It

Piece Stack Core build (≈ 70 %) Bolt.new hackathon workspace (Next.js + ShadCN) “Hard bits” (≈ 30 %) Cursor AI pair-programming for Mapbox + interview flow Data & auth Supabase (anonymous + email magic links) AI OpenAI function calls for essays + Tavus for video interviews Time on clock 26 hours from blank repo to live demo—solo, non-dev founder

Challenges

Tiny window. Had a 26-hour gap between other deadlines—had to ship fast or not at all. Context whiplash. UI polish → DB migrations → prompt tuning → back to CSS. Learning Supabase policies + OpenAI functions on the fly. Fun, but spicy.

Wins

End-to-end production ready platform—including video interviews—in one weekend. Felt real good Looks and feels like a real app, not a proof-of-concept.

What I Learned

Supabase RLS can get really challenging really quickly.

With Bolt + Cursor, a founder who’s not a developer can still crank out full-stack products at ridiculous speed.

Ruthless scoping is a super-power.

What’s Next

Free beta for the 2025–26 applicant cohort—collect brutal feedback.

Flesh out the community forum + peer essay swaps.

Google-Docs-style suggestions in the essay editor (inline diff, accept/reject). I have a v1 of this but I love the "Cursor for Documents" feel that is budding from it.

Counselor dashboards so advisors can oversee multiple students.

Clone the playbook for other gnarly grad-school apps—PA, vet, law, MBA.

Built With

• bolt
• cursor
• react
• supabase
• vite