Collegepond

Collegepond has counselled students into universities abroad since 2003. By the time Appetals was engaged, the firm had guided more than 20,000 students into 300-plus universities across 17 countries, with a 97% admission success rate. That track record was the problem.

A study abroad application runs for roughly 18 months. It covers career choice, university shortlisting, the statement of purpose, recommendation letters, test prep, financing, visa documents, and interview prep. At Collegepond's scale, every one of those steps lived in a different tool, a spreadsheet, or an email thread. Counsellors and mentors had no shared workspace. Students could not see their own progress. The practice was excellent, but it could not be put in a student's pocket.

Collegepond wanted to fix that with a product, not more staff. India sends over a million students abroad each year, into a market worth around 38 billion dollars. Winning a share of that demand now means being the firm a student opens on their phone, not the office they visit twice.

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Appetals designed and built Converge, a cross-platform application spanning Android, iOS, and web. One system served four roles on a single data layer: students, counsellors, mentors, and administrators. Each role got its own interface over the same operational backbone, so a counsellor's note and a student's task list stayed in sync.

The platform shipped nine functional modules:

1. Profile and account management for academic history, test scores, intended field, and work experience.
2. Appointment booking with Google Calendar and iCal sync for student, counsellor, and mentor sessions.
3. Dashboard surfacing each student's articles, videos, courses, appointments, and tasks at every login.
4. Content library of articles, videos, documents, and templates, mapped to each stage of the journey.
5. Career module with questionnaires, career videos, and a guided path to a chosen field.
6. Visa application module covering document requirements, financing content, and a guided chatbox.
7. University applications module that walks a student through each institution's submission rules.
8. Interview preparation with mock videos, FAQs, group chat, and live counselling.
9. Statement of purpose and resume modules with questionnaire-driven drafting, an approval workflow, and templates.

Technical scope: JavaScript backend on MySQL, an AngularJS web application, a native Android app in Java, and a native iOS app in Swift, all serving the four user types from one shared data layer. Appetals stayed on as Collegepond's product partner after launch, building new features as the app grew.

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