Acadub

An online crowdsourcing platform that provides students from disadvantaged background personal, on-demand, text-based college advising

Task: Product Strategy; UX Research & Design; Prototyping

Role: Founder, Designer

Challenge

Design a scalable digital solution that help high school students from disadvantaged background to navigate the complex college application process and make more informed decisions.

Outcome

Acadub, online crowdsourcing platform that provides students from disadvantaged background personal, on-demand, text-based college advising. Funded by National Science Foundation I-Corp and Institute of Education Sciences.

Problem

Over 70% of colleges struggle to meet their enrollment goals, largely as a result of the 40% college dropout rate. Recent studies indicate that this dropout rate originates from high schoolers’ uninformed college choices. Given that the average ratio of counselors to high schoolers is 1 to 500, and the rise of 1st-generation college applicants, it is clear the college exploration process needs to be radically improved.

How might we provide scalable support for LIMFG (Low-income, Minority, First Generation) college-bound students to make more informed college decisions?

Research

I have conducted over 20+ hour observation and 110+ one-on-one interviews with students, high school counselors and college admissions, student success and college readiness program directors, mentors etc. I also hosted two workshops, each with over 20 participants, as an alternative to focus group to get more feedback from my target users.