Two roles. Different access. Same student.
A counselor oversees every stage of the admissions journey - from discovery games through committee deliberations. An essay editor sees only what they need: the student’s essays, drafts, and revision history. IvyPi shapes each dashboard around its role, so both can work effectively without crossing data boundaries.
Juggles 15-20 student essays across scattered Google Docs. Loses track of which drafts have feedback, which are waiting on revisions, and which deadlines are tomorrow. No consolidated progress view across their caseload.
Private counselors oversee 40+ students across different schools and grade levels. For a dedicated counselor, strategizing Seniors’ college selection while balancing fall semester planning--and not missing a beat on timely check-ins with students and parents--is critical.
The student sees a calm, structured path.
No feature overload. A getting-started carousel, upcoming tasks, and no-pressure discovery games - the whole surface is designed to feel safe during a high-stress process.
Swipe through and open the one that feels right.
Complete your profile
All the essentials are in; refine anytime.
Add courses & grades
14 courses added so far; update each term.
Six games that surface what you actually care about - no right answers.
Play and discover
No-pressure games that reveal what makes you tick - and spark essay ideas.
I kept putting community impact first. I didn't expect that - I thought I'd pick independence.
Ranked 'community impact' above 'personal achievement' in 4 of 5 rounds. Lean into this for the leadership PIQ.
Trade-off style: deliberate. Took 8+ seconds on 3 prompts before committing.
Flexibly adapted by counselors and editors.
Counselors configure each student’s experience. Students see it change in real time. The discovery profile that emerges feeds directly into the essays that constitute the crux of the application.
Would you rather lead a club or start one?
Context is everything.
Student status, essay progress, session scheduling, and discovery data - all in one workspace. The counselor dashboard consolidates what used to live in scattered spreadsheets.
Discovery data flows into tailored essays.
Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others. (350 words)
When I noticed that underclassmen in our environmental science club were struggling to connect classroom concepts to real-world problems, I restructured our weekly meetings around community-driven projects rather than lecture-style presentations.
Instead of telling members what to care about, I paired each student with a local organization - the watershed council, the city sustainability office, a neighborhood composting cooperative. Within two months, attendance doubled and three teams presented original research at the county science fair. One project on microplastic filtration in storm drains led to a pilot program with our city’s public works department.
The hardest part was stepping back. My instinct was to direct every project, but I learned that my role was to create conditions where others could find their own questions.
The first time I watched a seventh-grader solve a problem I'd struggled with in ninth grade, I understood something about teaching that no classroom had taught me. It wasn't about knowing the answer. It was about asking the right question at the right moment - and then staying quiet long enough to let someone find it themselves.
I started tutoring at Garfield Middle School because my counselor suggested it. I stayed because of Marcus. He'd stare at his worksheet like it was written in a language he hadn't learned yet. One afternoon I asked him to explain the problem to me instead of solving it. He talked for four minutes straight - and by the end, he'd answered his own question.
That moment changed how I thought about every leadership role I'd held. As president of the environmental science club, I'd been directing meetings like lectures. After Marcus, I restructured everything. I paired each member with a local organization and stepped back. Within two months, attendance doubled.
Then the committee weighs in.
Each persona reads independently, then the committee reconvenes. Conviction measures how strongly a reviewer holds their position. Two axes create a deliberation landscape - not just who leans admit, but how certain they are.
All on clear data boundaries.
Five roles, one source of truth. Sensitive data never crosses into subsystems that have no reason to hold it.
The student, the editor, and the tester.
After editing over a hundred essays and working as a counselor, I owned the 0 to 1 build to reducing multi-tab navigation, eliminating logistical overhead for counselors and editors alike.
Observing students navigate college profiles shifted our entire hierarchy away from prestige metrics toward execution blockers. Instead of fixating on acceptance rates, students immediately searched for upcoming deadlines and specific academic programs to draft their "Why Us" essays. I restructured the profile to surface critical cutoffs, niche majors, and department resources above the fold, turning a passive browse page into an actionable research workspace that helped applicants commit to target programs weeks earlier.