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emphatically, an edtech startup that specializes in college counseling and career guidance services, raised $15 million in a recent funding round led by Conductive Ventures, the company announced today. The new capital will work towards scaling its services, building out its AI-powered products, and developing its first mobile app, which is set to launch in the US by the end of 2024. Empowerly has raised $30 million to date.
“The past year has been challenging for the entire startup ecosystem, and some are saying it has been one of the worst funding environments in the last decade,” says co-founder Changxiao Xie. “This round is a testament to the platform and services we have built, from our recruitment of former Ivy League admissions officers to the way we have used data and machine learning to evaluate and improve student outcomes from high school to college and beyond.” Have taken advantage. , “We are working with more students and families than ever before and seeing great results year after year, and are excited to continue this momentum.”
The company’s funding comes at a time when admissions season is becoming more competitive than ever, and high school counselors are not always equipped to provide expert advice on college-related issues. According to Research Overview of Common App3,353,516 applications were sent to thousands of schools on the Common App for the 2023-24 academic year, up 65% from 2019-20 (2,028,507), marking a substantial increase in college applications.
Image Credit: emphatically
“Last year was one of the most competitive college admissions seasons ever,” co-founder Hanmei Wu told TechCrunch. “Some Ivy League schools like Yale have seen the lowest acceptance rates in decades. Yet, students are still not getting the right support. The counselor-to-student ratio is more than 400-to-1, and students are feeling left behind just as I did years ago.
Founded in 2018, Empowerly aims to take the pressure off students who have nowhere to spend 60 to 200 hours Applying to colleges. After a free 30-minute consultation with a student, Empowerly creates a customized plan that includes services like college counseling, essay editing, financial planning, admissions review, internship preparation and matching, research consulting, and more. Students meet regularly with counselors and can talk to essay experts, pre-professional expert advisors, and former admissions officers from top universities. Empowerly has a network of over 100 college counselors who focus on fields like pre-med, engineering, STEM, business, law, and humanities.
Pricing varies for each service but the company shares that its “comprehensive consulting packages” are typically $5,000 and up. One reddit user One user is reported to have paid nearly $1,600 for 16 private essay sessions on Empowerly, while another user claims to have paid $9,000 for its service (yet not revealing what specific services they paid for. Have done). college counseling forum college wise Fees can range from $2,000 to $10,000 depending on what is included in a student’s personalized package.
Image Credit: emphatically
Empowerly touts its proprietary technology – the Empowerly Score – as a key differentiator among its competitors, including college wise, Solomon Admissions Counseling And i accept, Empowerly Score evaluates a student’s extracurricular activities (sports, community service and clubs), achievements (awards and leadership roles), academics and essays, then leverages predictive machine-learning models to generate a single score, Highlights areas that students should improve to better compete with other applicants.
“This is the only predictive technology that can even quantify subjective content,” Xie says. “Our thousands of data points and proprietary internal datasets also help students and counselors get the latest information on what schools and competitive summer programs look for in applicants (including standardized testing, essay strategies, etc.), what new programs this year, are available that were not available last year, which opportunities are best suited for particular student profiles, and which scholarships students can qualify for.
The scoring system helps Empowerly counselors understand which areas students should focus the most of their time on, whether it’s practicing taking more standardized tests or signing up for extracurriculars.
“Each of the top 200 US universities (with more colleges being added) has a benchmark tied to the admissions difficulty level, and our platform and counselors compare a student’s Empowerly score to these benchmarks to understand which students are Areas that are strong or require additional work,” Xie said.
The company also offers several experience-focused programs for students to improve their college applications. For example, Empowerly connects high school students with virtual internships at startups in the Bay Area. Students can also meet PhD students who have studied in the laboratories of prestigious schools such as Columbia, Brown, and MIT.
Additionally, Empowerly joined the Sequoia Marketplace in July 2023, offering its services as an employee benefit to working parents.
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