ApplyRight: Enhancing Authentic Student Voices in College Admissions

The sentiment behind a student's college admissions essay should reflect their unique experiences and passions. However, much of this intended meaning gets lost when students write what they believe admissions offices want to hear, rather than authentically representing themselves. This is where the startup ApplyRight steps in, enhancing the college admissions essay writing process while helping students stay true to themselves and find their ideal college fit.

Valentin de La Pena, McCormick ‘25, was inspired to found ApplyRight by personal experience and his passion for writing. Understanding the power of words and written communication, Valentin wanted to help high school students better navigate college admissions.

Valentin is joined this summer by Jiho Kwak McCormick & TGS ‘24, Carl Wilson, McCormick & Weinberg ‘27, Aiden Lee, McCormick ‘27, Aryan Avadhanam, McCormick & Bienen ‘27, Claudia Chang, Weinberg ‘26, and Zachary Troeller, MIT ‘27.

“I originally wanted to create a tool that would help people write and communicate themselves better. As I was developing that tool, I came across college admissions essays, and I realized that was a really big opportunity, where there are a lot of people who are struggling to represent themselves in a strong light,” Valentin shared.

ApplyRight is a guided website offering a virtual advisor tailored to each student’s experience. The virtual advisor breaks down the college admissions essay writing process into manageable steps, making it more approachable. ApplyRight’s customizable design includes a dashboard with informational modules that guide students throughout the writing process. As Valentin explains, ApplyRight is “designed to be non-linear because the essay writing process is iterative. It is created to live and work with you over the course of a few months as you lead up to your college applications, and accommodates any changes as you progress.”

The biggest differentiator for ApplyRight as a startup is the user experience: instead of a student searching through a plethora of resources, ApplyRight provides guidance, accessibility and comfort in the college essay writing process through their personalized website. Valentin shares that with ApplyRight, “the student is able to have a dialogue and a discussion about their writing, which creates a much more personal and friendly experience.”

The Jumpstart program has been immensely helpful to the ApplyRight team, allowing them the time and resources to conduct user research with prospective students and facilitate the inner workings of ApplyRight. Valentin shares how the Jumpstart program has provided him and his team support, saying that “being in The Garage, surrounded by other qualified student teams, helps us become a lot better. In terms of getting our startup off the ground, having a community of like-minded founders within Jumpstart has been really helpful and has allowed me to grow as an individual and an entrepreneur.”

Although the ApplyRight team is focusing on college admissions essays right now, they have ambitious plans for the future. Their eventual goal is to target larger audiences in the writing space to continue helping everyone accomplish their best writing. “Expanding ApplyRight beyond high schools and colleges to make the writing process as human and approachable as possible is something that we are working actively towards,” shared Valentin.

Stay tuned for more information about ApplyRight!

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