UniGuide

Main Page
University Finder
Extra Curriculars
Scholarships
University Recommender

Inspiration

While currently going through the European university application process ourselves, we found that the application system is overly complex, time-consuming, and often biased toward students with access to resources and support. Many of these students lack the guidance, networks, and financial support that wealthier peers take for granted, leaving talent and potential overlooked. This becomes especially true for young adults who need to balance school with other occupations, such as part-time jobs, in order to financially sustain themselves. That's where we decided to step in and develop a solution that

What it does

UniGuide offers a university explorer that matches each student with a university based on filtered costs, location, and rank, removing the initial hassle of spending hours researching options and allowing them to focus on preparing strong applications instead. It also provides an extracurricular builder, which opens each student to a plethora of opportunities for different fields of study. Last but not least, UniGuide provides a scholarship finder, which categorizes local and global scholarships, tailored for each student's needs. All of these features are paired with an on-board, custom-trained LLM chatbot that interacts with the student and provides explanations to any relevant queries.

How we built it

We designed UniGuide with accessibility at its core. Using a combination of web technologies such as Next.js and FastAPI for backend interactions, we built a platform that integrates a university database, a scholarship finder, and a project idea generator..

Challenges we ran into

One of the biggest challenges we faced was originally to differentiate ourselves from the vast market of "university helper" websites found online. By keeping our site free to use, and with a focus on underprivileged students in mind, we hope to stand out among the crowd/

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud that UniGuide gives underprivileged students tools that are usually only available through expensive private counselors. Creating a functional university explorer and scholarship matcher within a short timeframe showed us the impact technology can have when designed for inclusivity.

What we learned

This process taught us not only the complexities behind making a full-stack website with AI integration, but also the emphasis that is required in planning out the idea before implementing any code. Originally, we went through 20+ different ideas and prototypes before finally landing on UniGuide.

What's next for UniGuide

We plan on leaving the website free to use. However, here are some current ideas we brainstormed for the future of this project:

Community mentorship where students can connect with mentors who’ve successfully navigated the process.
Localized support for different regions, so students in every part of the world have access to opportunities.
Social Media Marketing for student recognition and first users.
Hopefully, we eventually hope to partner with OpenGrant to power the scholarship finder, combining both projects for the greater good.