Frequently Asked Questions

CollegeApp is an AI-powered high school and college preparation platform. It gives every student an AI tutor (Sofia) for day-to-day studying, an AI college coach (Katy) for application strategy and essays, and a full suite of tools to manage deadlines, test scores, activities, and applications — all in one place.

CollegeApp is built for high school students from freshman year through senior year. Freshmen and sophomores use Sofia to strengthen their academics and build good study habits. Juniors use the AP practice exams, SAT/ACT prep, flashcards, and college research tools. Seniors use Katy for essay coaching and the full application management suite. Parents can monitor progress through a linked parent account. Schools and districts can access institutional plans.

Yes. CollegeApp is a responsive web app that works on any modern smartphone or tablet browser. There is no native iOS or Android app at this time — bookmark the site on your phone's home screen for the quickest access.

Not directly — CollegeApp is a planning, studying, and organization tool, not a submission platform. You still submit applications through Common App, Coalition, or a school's own portal. CollegeApp helps you draft and polish essays, track every deadline, and stay organized so you are fully prepared when you go to submit.

CollegeApp is $29/month per child, or $249/year per child ($20.75/month, saving you about 28%). All features are included in one plan — there is no free tier or feature-locked version. A 14-day free trial is available; a credit card is required to start, but you are not charged until the trial ends.

Yes. A valid card is required to start your 14-day free trial, but you will not be charged during the trial. Your subscription begins automatically when the trial ends, and you can cancel anytime before then to avoid any charge.

Unless you cancel first, your subscription starts automatically at the end of the 14-day trial ($29/month per child) using the card on file. If you cancel before the trial ends, you won't be charged and access stops when the trial ends. Either way your data is preserved, so you can resubscribe anytime.

Yes. You can cancel at any time from your Account Settings. Your access continues until the end of the current billing period — we do not cut off access the moment you cancel.

For monthly plans, if you are unsatisfied within 7 days of a charge, contact us at info@collegeapp.us and we will issue a full refund for that billing period. Annual plans are refunded on a prorated basis within 30 days of purchase if you have not made significant use of the platform.

Yes. We offer custom institutional pricing for schools, school districts, and counseling programs — including bulk student seats, a counselor dashboard, and custom onboarding. Email us at info@collegeapp.us to discuss your institution's needs.

Click "Forgot password?" on the sign-in page and enter your email address. You will receive a password reset link within a few minutes. Check your spam folder if it does not arrive.

Go to Account Settings (accessible from the sidebar) and scroll to the danger zone at the bottom. Deleting your account permanently removes all your data — colleges, essays, scores, activities, flashcard progress, and everything else. This action cannot be undone.

Yes. Your data is stored in Supabase, hosted on Amazon Web Services with encryption at rest and in transit. Row-level security ensures each user can only access their own data. We never sell your data or use it for advertising.

Not yet via an in-app export button, but you can email us at info@collegeapp.us and we will provide a data export. A self-serve export feature is on our roadmap.

A linked parent account can see their child's level, study streak, badges, study plans, practice quiz and exam scores, and short summaries of tutoring sessions, plus their college list, essays, and application progress. It's read-only. Parents don't see full tutor conversations, and private journal entries are never visible to parents.

No — each account is personal to one student. Each person should create their own account. Sharing accounts mixes your college lists, essays, scores, and study progress together, which causes confusion and defeats the purpose of personalized tracking.

Sofia is your AI tutor inside CollegeApp. You can chat with her about any high school subject — math, science, history, English, and more. She explains concepts, works through problems step by step, quizzes you, and adapts to your level. Access Sofia from the Tutor section in the sidebar.

Sofia covers 42 courses: 25 AP courses (math, computer science, the sciences, English, history and social sciences, and AP Seminar), 8 honors and regular courses, SAT Math, SAT Reading & Writing, the ACT, and 6 science competition events. She can also chat about any other high school subject.

Yes. In the Tutor, choose Add your own class, then paste your syllabus or upload a photo or PDF of it. Sofia reads it and builds a topic-by-topic study plan that you can edit.

CollegeApp uses a spaced-repetition system (called Leitner boxes) with more than 8,000 pre-built flashcards across the course catalog. Cards you know well appear less frequently; cards you struggle with come back sooner. Each study session serves you a mix of due cards and new cards. Your progress is saved so you pick up exactly where you left off.

Each of our 25 AP courses has a full practice exam modeled on the real exam's format: multiple choice plus free response where the course has it, in timed sections. You can take the whole exam or one section at a time. Afterward you get an estimated AP score from 1 to 5. It's an estimate based on your practice performance, not a prediction of your official score.

Yes. SAT Math, SAT Reading & Writing, and the ACT each have a study plan, practice questions, flashcards, and timed practice tests in the Tutor section.

Six science competition events — Anatomy & Physiology, Epidemiology, Earth & Space Science, Ecology, Paleontology, and Astronomy. Each has a study plan, practice questions, flashcards, and a timed mock test scored by percentage.

For each course, Sofia can generate a structured study plan that breaks the subject into topics and suggests a review schedule. Access study plans from the Plan tab inside any course in the Tutor section.

Sofia is your AI tutor — she helps you understand academic subjects, practice with flashcards, and prepare for tests. Katy is your AI college coach — she helps you with essay brainstorming, draft feedback, school research, and application strategy. Both are available 24/7 inside the app.

Katy can help you brainstorm essay topics, review drafts for tone and clarity, suggest stronger word choices, research specific colleges, practice interview questions, and give strategic advice on where to apply. She understands the context of college admissions and gives specific, actionable feedback.

No. Katy is a writing and strategy tool, not professional college counseling. She can help you articulate ideas and organize your application, but decisions about which schools to apply to, whether to apply ED, or how to handle sensitive situations in your application should involve your school counselor or a qualified college advisor.

Your messages to Sofia and Katy are sent to Anthropic's Claude API to generate responses. Under our agreement with Anthropic, your data is not used to train their models. No one at CollegeApp reads your conversations. See our Privacy Policy for full details.

Both AI assistants can occasionally make mistakes — especially about specific school requirements, deadlines, or academic content that changes frequently. Always verify important information directly with your teacher, college admissions website, or another authoritative source before relying on it.

You earn XP for real study progress: finishing practice quizzes (more for correct answers), completing practice exams, reviewing flashcards, and mastering topics. Studying on back-to-back days builds a streak, and badges mark milestones like a 7-day streak or mastering every topic in a course. Some actions have daily limits, so XP reflects learning rather than repetition.

When you add multiple SAT or ACT attempts, CollegeApp picks the highest section score from each attempt and adds them together. For the SAT that is Evidence-Based Reading & Writing + Math. For the ACT it averages the best English, Math, Reading, and Science scores. Many colleges superscore, so this gives you your best possible reported score.

CollegeApp adds a bonus to courses based on rigor: AP and IB courses get +1.0, Honors and Dual Enrollment get +0.5, and standard courses use the base 4.0 scale. Letter grades map to grade points (A/A+ = 4.0, A- = 3.7, B+ = 3.3, and so on). Go to AP & GPA in the sidebar and assign a grade to each course to see your GPA calculated automatically.

On the Activities page, drag and drop the activity cards to reorder them. The order you set is the order that will appear on your student portfolio. Put your most meaningful activities first — colleges typically read them in the order you list them.

The Student Portfolio is a shareable one-page summary of your academic profile, activities, AP courses, awards, and competitions. Generate a private link and send it to coaches, counselors, employers, or anyone else. You can revoke the link at any time.

Check your internet connection first. Most saves happen automatically — look for a confirmation toast at the bottom of the screen. If saves consistently fail, try refreshing the page, logging out and back in, or clearing your browser's cookies for this site. If the problem persists, email us at info@collegeapp.us.

This usually means your session has expired or your trial has ended. Sign in again and the issue should resolve. If your trial has ended, you will need to subscribe to regain full access.

Make sure the link is active — go to My Portfolio and check that the toggle shows the link as active, not revoked. If it looks active but still fails, try regenerating the link. If you are the visitor rather than the owner, contact the person who sent you the link.