Reach Best — Redefining College Admissions with AI
Case Study · 8 min read
Redesigning How Students Choose Their Future — with Empathy and AI
As the sole designer, I led the end-to-end design of two responsive web apps:
→ One for students navigating college admissions
→ One for schools and counselors guiding them
My goal? Replace stress with clarity—using emotionally intelligent design and AI automation to help students find their best-fit universities, predict admission chances, and refine their applications.
From research to final delivery, I owned it all—flows, visuals, motion, and microinteractions—crafting a product that balanced AI logic with human insight.
Product Designer
4 Months
Ryusei
CEO
Hritik
Full Stack Developer
Soufiane
Frontend Developer
THE PROBLEM
The Journey to College Was Full of Tools — But Empty of Guidance
Users don’t even know where to begin.
There are too many colleges - how am I supposed to know which ones to even look at?
This AI feels cold and robotic.
It's just throwing random schools at me without understanding what I actually care about.
Everyone keeps asking me what I want in a college and honestly, I don't even know where to start.
Students struggled to articulate their priorities, focusing on applications rather than self-discovery.
Meanwhile, counselors lacked visibility.
They couldn’t track progress or step in early enough to help.
How Might We…
Help students discover what they actually want in a college before they start searching?
Help students reflect and articulate their goals early in the journey?
Give schools visibility into student progress — without adding more manual work?
Turn AI into a relatable mentor instead of a robotic tool?
Design a platform that transforms college admissions from overwhelming to empowering.
USER GOAL
Help students reflect on their goals, explore options meaningfully, and feel guided throughout the process.
COUNSELOR GOAL
Provide schools with real-time insight into student activity — without requiring extra effort or new tools to learn.
BUSINESS GOAL
Build trust through ethical, human-centered AI — and create a product that students want to talk about and share.
MY DESIGN APPRAOCH
RESEARCH & INSIGHTS
We spoke to users, ran feedback loops, and benchmarked tools. Here's what changed everything:
“It gives me answers... but it doesn’t get me.”
→ Led to AI Mentors — narrative-driven AI with distinct voices
“I don’t have time to think about why I want this.”
→ Inspired Vision Tracker — helping students reflect before shortlisting
“We barely get to meet the students.”
→ Drove school dashboard features for real-time tracking & nudging
INTRESTING INSIGHT
Competitor tools had features. We wanted feelings—belonging, believability, and empathy.
SWOT competitor analysis
Students feel lost, pressured, and unheard
Counselors are disconnected from the process
AI becomes a cold recommendation engine instead of a trusted guide
IDEATION & CONCEPTS
MY BRAIN
Can we make AI feel like a senior, not a search box?
Can we make the first step... not feel like a step?
The solution should meet these criteria
Simple, human-first flows for students
Reflection-first, not ranking-first
Tools for counselors that don’t add to their workload
AI that feels warm, believable, and trustworthy
Riya Sharma
Find universities that match her academic strengths and interests.
Get clear guidance on essays, deadlines, and requirements.
Reduce stress and confusion during the application process.
Feels overwhelmed by too many options and scattered information.
Unsure how to build a strong application story.
Limited access to one-on-one counselor time at school.
Researches online late at night, mostly on mobile.
Relies on peer reviews and AI tools for instant feedback.
Motivated by progress tracking and milestone achievements.
Anil Verma
Help students discover best-fit universities efficiently.
Manage and track student applications in one place.
Provide data-driven guidance without being overloaded.
High student-to-counselor ratio leaves little time per student.
Lacks easy-to-use tools to organize applications.
Overwhelmed by constant student queries and repetitive questions.
Uses desktop at school, but mobile notifications for quick updates.
Prefers dashboards that summarize student progress at a glance.
Values AI tools that save time and allow more personalized mentoring.
THE SOLUTION
Personalized university recommendations based on goals, not rankings.
Narrative-driven AI personas modeled after real students—relatable, warm, and trustworthy.
A lightweight space to define aspirations and priorities before shortlisting.
An ethical writing assistant to help students brainstorm, outline, and self-edit—without writing content for them.
At-a-glance visibility into student activity—essays, shortlists, and engagement.
Let counselors recommend universities directly without chasing students over email.
Quickly surface disengaged or at-risk students with one click.
Reach Best Student App
Reach Best School App
As we saw students drop off after getting admitted, we discussed ways to stay relevant post-admission.
One idea was to let university students share their campus projects and, later, auto-generate a fresher resume during placement season — keeping them engaged beyond the college search.
AI Mentors — Guidance That Feels Human
A student once told us:
“It’s giving me information, but it doesn’t feel like it understands me.”
That single insight sparked the creation of AI Mentors—personality-rich, story-based AI guides trained on real student journeys. Each Mentor had:
A relatable backstory (e.g., transfer student, international applicant)
A distinct tone (warm, formal, casual)
A focus area (e.g., STEM programs, scholarships, test-optional pathways)
They didn’t just provide answers.
They offered understanding, making students feel heard.
AI Mentors list view
AI Mentors Chat
Why We Didn’t Let AI Write Essays
We debated using AI to generate full essays—but it didn’t sit right.
If a student didn’t write their own story, could they truly own it?
So we designed Reach Best to review essays, not write them.
Here’s how it works:
Students upload their own drafts
AI analyzes the content (trained on thousands of successful essays)
Feedback includes:
Structural improvements — clearer flow and stronger story arcs
Voice and tone checks — keeping the essay authentic and personal
Suggestions for what’s missing — e.g., “Add a concrete example here to show impact” or “Consider tying this back to your career goal”
Instead of fixing grammar or rephrasing sentences blindly, the AI explains why these changes matter—so students learn to think like great writers.
This made AI a trusted second reader, not a shortcut.
Why We Built RB Search to Think Like a Student.
The hardest part of applying to college?
Knowing where to start.
Most students rely on rankings or Reddit—but those don't tell you what a school feels like, or whether it actually fits who you are.
So we built RB Search to automate the research, not the decision.
Here’s how it works:
Students answer a few questions—like interests, major, and goals
Our AI scans thousands of sources (reviews, forums, student profiles)
It finds patterns, filters the noise, and suggests universities that match the student’s values and context
Feedback is based on:
Academic & cultural fit — not just acceptance rates
Hidden gems — schools students hadn’t even heard of
Why it fits — so users understand why each school made the list
Instead of dumping a list of top-ranked colleges, RB Search acts like a thinking partner—helping students ask better questions and uncover better answers.
This made AI a curator of clarity, not a search engine.
RB Search
Campus Exploration, Gamified
Most students bounce between platforms while researching schools.
We wanted them to stay—and be emotionally engaged.
So we integrated Google Earth directly into Reach Best, enhancing it with game-like controls:
Zoom, rotate, and pan with mouse and keyboard
Navigate as if you're “walking through campus”
This turned exploration from a task into a tactile, emotional experience—more like a discovery game than a static app.
Smart Notes — A Place for Thoughts, Deadlines, and Insights
College search is filled with scattered moments of insight—something useful in a webinar, a deadline mentioned in a blog, a quote from a mentor. Students needed a place to capture these thoughts without leaving the app.
So we built a Medium-style text editor directly into Reach Best.
With it, students could:
Jot down reflections and personal reasons for applying to specific schools
Save application deadlines or scholarship dates
Paste helpful links or highlight moments from virtual tours
It wasn’t just a notes feature—it became a personal admissions journal.
By integrating this inside the app, we reduced context switching and made the platform a single source of truth.
IMPACT & OUTCOMES
The redesigned Reach Best platform empowered students to take control of their admissions journey—while giving schools and counselors the tools to support them at scale.
AI-powered tools simplified discovery and reduced overwhelm.
AI Mentors became the top-rated feature (70%)
Students preferred mentors that felt human over generic assistants.
5M+ reach across TikTok and Instagram
Viral content from users drove widespread organic growth.
10,000+ students across 40+ countries onboarded
Reach Best scaled both through individual use and school adoption.
Counselors gained complete visibility with no extra effort
Progress dashboards eliminated manual follow-ups.
Custom-built design system with zero UI libraries
A lightweight, scalable design system worked seamlessly across both apps.
Recognition & Press
Highlighted as an AI product reshaping college admissions with empathy and ethics.
Featured on 2 national news channels
Acknowledged as a breakthrough in student-focused AI guidance.
Invited to present at the Council of International Schools (CIS)
After Duolingo, Reach Best became the only other company invited—solidifying its position in trusted international education spaces.
LEARNINGS AND REFLECTIONS
From Solo Designer to Systems Thinker and Story Architect
⚡
Even the smartest tools fall flat if they don’t feel human. Empathy drove more impact than algorithms ever could.
⚡
With no UI kits or libraries, I was forced to think in systems and build a lean, scalable design language from the ground up.
⚡
By choosing not to let AI write essays, we ended up building tools that supported deep thinking—and earned lasting trust.
