ScholaRoute

Before allocation
After allocation

Inspiration

In South Sudan, university admissions are often manual, opaque, and inconsistent. Students face uncertainty about where they’ll be admitted, and administrators deal with messy Excel files and evolving government rules. This creates inefficiency, bias, and frustration. We created ScholaRoute to bring fairness, transparency, and reliability to admissions — designed specifically for low-connectivity environments.

What it does

ScholaRoute is an offline-first admissions platform that:

Reads Excel student records.
Computes aggregate scores automatically.
Matches students to courses based on preferences and eligibility (e.g., “Additional Math ≥ 70 for Engineering”).
Falls back to best-fit courses if none of the choices are eligible.
Allows manual overrides for edge cases.
Produces clear reports in PDF, Excel, CSV, and HTML formats.

This ensures students are placed fairly, and universities get consistent, transparent allocation records.

How we built it

Python + Pandas → data cleaning, score aggregation, eligibility checking.
Custom allocation engine → choice prioritization, fallback matching, policy enforcement.
FastAPI → lightweight backend with a user-friendly web interface.
ReportLab → high-quality, paginated PDFs with responsive tables.
Render deployment, but with offline-first design (can run locally in ministries/universities without internet).

Challenges

Designing allocation logic flexible enough to adapt to changing government policies.
Cleaning inconsistent Excel files from schools using different formats.
Formatting PDFs so all columns fit and remain readable.
Balancing automation and manual control for fairness.
Guaranteeing the system runs offline without external APIs.

Accomplishments we’re proud of

A fully functional multi-university allocation engine.
Manual overrides integrated seamlessly with automatic allocations.
Clean, judge-friendly exports in multiple formats.
A simple web UI that non-technical administrators can use.
A system that’s ready for real-world pilots in South Sudan.

What we learned

Real-world admissions are messy and political, requiring empathy and flexibility.
Offline-first design is a superpower in underserved regions.
Simplicity, clarity, and fairness matter more than complex algorithms.
Building trust into admissions software is as important as the tech itself.

What’s next for ScholaRoute

Pilot deployment with universities and ministries in South Sudan.
Add student portals and SMS notifications for allocation results.
Integrate payments and scholarship modules.
Expand to housing and resource allocation.
Open-source the allocation engine for use in other countries facing similar challenges.