Built by recent admits, not career consultants

Your profile.
Your roadmap.
Not a template.

You've seen the generic advice. The Reddit threads. The YouTube videos written for a student who isn't you. CollegeMaxx builds your college roadmap from your actual GPA, your actual activities, and your actual target schools, using the same strategies that cost $400/hr at traditional firms.

See what we can do for you What's inside
★★★★★
50+ students guided
Admits to Harvard, Stanford, MIT & more
7–10 day turnaround
Crafted by hand from your profile
Real transformation
Activity Strength Score
Before3.1/10
After CollegeMaxx8.6/10
What changed
"Member, Robotics Club"
"Robotics Team Captain, led a 12 person team to state finals and secured a $3,000 grant"
Why families choose CollegeMaxx

Same strategic depth.
A fraction of the cost.

Traditional Consulting
$10,000–$40,000
✕Billed by the hour, no flat rate
✕Weeks of scheduling before work even starts
✕Advice that is often generic across clients
✕Out of reach for most families
VS
CollegeMaxx
$199–$389
✓One flat fee, no hourly clock
✓Starts the moment you submit the form
✓Built from your student's actual profile
✓The same frameworks, priced for real families
Traditional firms charge $10,000 to $40,000 for this level of strategic depth. We built the same frameworks into our system, so we do not need to bill by the hour to deliver them.
Trusted by students accepted into
Harvard
Harvard
Stanford
Stanford
MIT
MIT
Yale
Yale
Princeton
Princeton
Columbia
Columbia
Penn
Penn
Duke
Duke
Brown
Brown
Michigan
Michigan
UT Austin
UT Austin
NYU
NYU
Harvard
Harvard
Stanford
Stanford
MIT
MIT
Yale
Yale
Princeton
Princeton
Columbia
Columbia
Penn
Penn
Duke
Duke
Brown
Brown
Michigan
Michigan
UT Austin
UT Austin
NYU
NYU
4x
Grade levels covered, with a distinct playbook for each year
$0
Upsells or subscriptions. One guide, one flat price
15–20
Minute intake form. Specific answers produce a specific guide
100%
Manual review on every guide before it ships
7–10
Business days from a completed intake to a delivered guide
6
In depth sections in every guide, from academic record to essay angles
99%
Less than traditional consulting fees, based on published rates
14
Day window covered by the Specificity Guarantee on every guide
The people behind it

We are the results
we sell.

We are not consultants who studied the admissions process. We went through it at a competitive level and spent years understanding why some students break through while equally qualified ones do not.

High school is not just preparation for applications. Students who start early with a real plan use every year intentionally. Students who do not spend junior and senior year reacting.

Current admissions, not last decade's
We navigated the actual process recently. We know what Common App looks like right now, what supplementals schools actually care about, and which standard advice has quietly stopped being true.
Built on the same strategies that cost thousands
The knowledge base powering every guide reflects strategies that traditionally cost $10,000 to $40,000 to access. We built it into the system so the price does not have to match.
No generic output at any stage
Every section of the guide must reference something from the student's intake form. If a section could apply to any student, it gets rewritten before it ships. That is an enforced production standard.
The difference

What this actually
replaces.

What most students use
✕Generic listicles and YouTube videos not written about your specific profile
✕School counselors with 400 other students and no time to go deep on yours
✕Consulting firms that charge by the hour and move slowly
✕Reddit threads where advice is given without knowing the student's record
✕Template guides that look personalized but use the same framework for everyone
What we give you
✓A guide that opens with your actual GPA, your actual schools, and your actual activity record
✓CDS data on every school you listed so comparisons are based on real admitted student ranges
✓Activity tier analysis that names each of your activities and tells you what each one communicates
✓Essay angles that come from what you actually shared, not a general prompt library
✓One flat price. No subscription. No hourly clock running.
Who built this

Recent graduates.
Real results.

What started as two founders reverse engineering $400 an hour consulting sessions has grown into a team of 10+ recent graduates, each with a dedicated role in the process: essay strategy, financial aid navigation, activity development, school list construction, testing timelines, and more. Every guide reflects that combined depth, not just one person's opinion of what works.

Haydn
Haydn
Co-Founder | UT Austin
Gained admission to multiple top-20 universities. Built the CollegeMaxx knowledge base from the ground up, drawing on direct experience with competitive admissions, essay strategy, and the specific mechanics of every major application platform.
Top-20 Admit Common App Essay Strategy CDS Research
Andy
Andy
Co-Founder | Duke University
Brings deep experience in financial aid navigation, scholarship identification, and making selective schools financially accessible. Every guide's financial aid section reflects strategies most families never learn until it is too late to use them.
Financial Aid FAFSA Strategy Merit Scholarships
What's inside

Not a template.
A real plan.

Every section of your guide is built from what you actually submitted. Your GPA against your actual target schools. Your activities evaluated by name. Your essay angles drawn from your specific background. Nothing in the guide applies to any other student.

01
Your academic record, read as an admissions officer reads it
Not your GPA as a number. What it communicates given your course load, school profile, and grade trajectory against the 25th and 75th percentile data at each school you listed.
02
Your activity list, analyzed tier by tier
Each activity named and evaluated for what it signals to a reader. Which ones are working. Which are passive filler. Which have room to be elevated before applications close.
03
Your college list, stress-tested for structural balance
Your specific profile run against each school on your list using CDS data. Most students come in with too many reaches, too few targets, and safety schools they would not actually attend.
04
Your narrative, made explicit
Most students have a story their application could tell but cannot articulate. We identify the through-line and give you specific guidance on how every section reinforces it.
05
Your essay angles, drawn from what you shared
Not a list of good topics. Specific angles available to you given your actual background, activities, and the intellectual direction you described in the intake form.
06
Your highest-leverage next moves, ranked
Not things students should generally do. Prioritized specific actions based on where you actually are, how much runway you have, and what produces the most signal given your profile.
Stop reading advice written for someone else's profile.
15 to 20 minute intake form. Crafted by our team. One flat price. Everything above, built specifically for your student.
See what we can do for you
How it works

Three steps.
No surprises.

Step 1
You fill out the intake form
15 to 20 minutes. GPA, courses, test scores, activities, intended major, target schools, and what you feel strongest and weakest about in your profile. The more specific your answers, the more specific your guide.
Step 2
We build it from your actual profile
Your intake responses run through the same strategic knowledge base that powers $10,000 to $40,000 consulting engagements. Every recommendation is tied to something your student actually submitted.
Step 3
You receive a complete roadmap
A formatted document. Specific moves. Honest gaps. No section ships that reads like generic advice. If it does not reference your student specifically, it gets rewritten before it reaches you.
Straightforward pricing

One guide. One price.
No subscriptions.

Each guide is priced by grade level because the depth and scope increases significantly as applications approach. A 9th grade guide is foundational strategy. An 11th grade guide is the most intensive we produce.

9th Grade
$199
Freshman year foundation
✓GPA strategy from day one
✓Course selection for the next 4 years
✓Extracurricular foundation plan
✓Preliminary college list direction
✓Highest-leverage next moves ranked
Start 9th grade
10th Grade
$249
Sophomore year build
✓Course trajectory assessment
✓Activity tier evaluation and elevation plan
✓Testing timeline built around your profile
✓Narrative development and spike identification
✓Highest-leverage next moves ranked
✓Summer opportunity recommendations, programs and research
Start 10th grade
Most Popular
11th Grade
$359
The most critical year
✓Full academic record analysis vs CDS data
✓Activity list tier evaluation with rewrites
✓College list stress-tested by actual profile
✓Summer strategy and essay prep roadmap
✓ED and EA round strategy
✓Essay angles specific to your profile
✓Recommendation letter strategy, who to ask and how
Start 11th grade
12th Grade
$389
Application execution
✓Full platform walkthrough by school
✓Activity description rewrite guidance
✓Supplemental essay angles per school
✓Financial aid and CSS Profile timeline
✓Decision navigation and waitlist strategy
✓QuestBridge and merit scholarship identification
✓Mistakes and misconceptions checklist before you submit
✓Gap year and contingency planning if decisions do not go as planned
Start 12th grade
✓
The Specificity Guarantee
If any section of your guide reads like generic advice that could apply to any student, we rewrite it free. If it still misses the mark after the rewrite, we refund you in full within 14 days of delivery. The risk sits with us, not with you.
Compare to alternatives
Traditional college consulting firms charge $10,000 to $40,000 for this level of strategic depth, billed by the hour across a multi month engagement. Independent consultants commonly charge $300 to $500 for a single session on its own. CollegeMaxx builds the same frameworks, the strategies we extracted from $400 an hour consulting sessions, into a system priced for real families: one flat fee between $199 and $389 depending on grade level. No hourly billing. No retainer. No upsells once you are in.
What students and parents say

Results people
did not expect.

Every review below is from a student or parent who went through the process. Hover to pause.

"Honestly wasn't expecting much but they actually looked at what I want to study and built my whole activities list around that. They knew the actual schools I was targeting too, not just generic stuff. Made me feel like someone actually read my answers."
Ethan L.
11th Grade
"I didn't even realize how bad my college list was until I got the guide back. I had zero safety schools I'd actually want to attend. Fixed that within like a day of reading it."
Maya T.
12th Grade
"My daughter's activity descriptions read completely differently after we used this guide. Each entry moved from vague participation language to specific outcomes with real numbers attached. The improvement was significant and immediately noticeable."
Parent
11th Grade Student
"The essay part helped me find something to actually write about that wasn't the same topic every other applicant does. Sounds simple but I had been stuck on this for weeks before that."
James R.
12th Grade
"We had previously paid a consulting firm $400 per hour before finding CollegeMaxx. This guide addressed several important points our consultant had never once mentioned, which was concerning given what we had already spent."
Parent
10th Grade Student
"What got me was how specific it actually was. It wasn't college advice in general, it was my schools and my actual grades. Never had that before honestly."
Sofia M.
11th Grade
"The financial aid section alone justified the cost. We had no idea the CSS Profile deadline fell weeks ahead of FAFSA at several of our target schools. Filing in the wrong order could have cost our family real aid money."
Parent
12th Grade Student
"Thought I had everything together until this pointed out stuff I hadn't even considered before October. Kind of scary how much I would've missed without it."
Tyler W.
12th Grade
"The narrative section proved to be the most valuable part of the guide for our family. Our son understood his individual activities well but had never considered what story they told as a whole. This made that connection clear and gave him a real foundation to build from."
Parent
11th Grade Student
"Started this in 10th grade and it made junior year so much less stressful. My friends who waited were scrambling by October and I already knew exactly what I was doing."
Priya K.
Now 11th Grade, started in 10th
"Honestly wasn't expecting much but they actually looked at what I want to study and built my whole activities list around that. They knew the actual schools I was targeting too, not just generic stuff. Made me feel like someone actually read my answers."
Ethan L.
11th Grade
"I didn't even realize how bad my college list was until I got the guide back. I had zero safety schools I'd actually want to attend. Fixed that within like a day of reading it."
Maya T.
12th Grade
"My daughter's activity descriptions read completely differently after we used this guide. Each entry moved from vague participation language to specific outcomes with real numbers attached. The improvement was significant and immediately noticeable."
Parent
11th Grade Student
"The essay part helped me find something to actually write about that wasn't the same topic every other applicant does. Sounds simple but I had been stuck on this for weeks before that."
James R.
12th Grade
"We had previously paid a consulting firm $400 per hour before finding CollegeMaxx. This guide addressed several important points our consultant had never once mentioned, which was concerning given what we had already spent."
Parent
10th Grade Student
"What got me was how specific it actually was. It wasn't college advice in general, it was my schools and my actual grades. Never had that before honestly."
Sofia M.
11th Grade
"The financial aid section alone justified the cost. We had no idea the CSS Profile deadline fell weeks ahead of FAFSA at several of our target schools. Filing in the wrong order could have cost our family real aid money."
Parent
12th Grade Student
"Thought I had everything together until this pointed out stuff I hadn't even considered before October. Kind of scary how much I would've missed without it."
Tyler W.
12th Grade
"The narrative section proved to be the most valuable part of the guide for our family. Our son understood his individual activities well but had never considered what story they told as a whole. This made that connection clear and gave him a real foundation to build from."
Parent
11th Grade Student
"Started this in 10th grade and it made junior year so much less stressful. My friends who waited were scrambling by October and I already knew exactly what I was doing."
Priya K.
Now 11th Grade, started in 10th
Before you decide

The questions
worth asking.

If you're wondering whether this is worth it, these are the honest answers. No spin.

AI has one job here: pulling current statistics. CDS percentile data, admitted student GPA ranges, acceptance rates, and other publicly available numbers that would take hours to compile by hand. Everything else runs on our team. The frameworks behind every guide come from strategies we extracted from top consulting firms and refined through our own recent admissions cycles. Our team designs the analysis, decides what matters for your student's specific situation, and reviews every guide line by line before it ships. If a section does not reference what your student actually submitted, it does not go out. That is an enforced production standard, not a marketing claim. You can tell the difference the moment you read it.
Free resources are written for a generic student. They tell you things like "join clubs" and "keep your GPA up." Your guide tells you that your AP Calculus BC grade needs to improve specifically because UVA's Engineering program admits students at a 3.9 unweighted median, and your current trajectory puts you at the 25th percentile. The difference is specificity, and specificity only comes from knowing your actual numbers.
Every guide takes 7 to 10 business days from the time we receive your completed intake form. Our team reads through your full submission, cross references your school list against CDS data, writes every section from scratch, and does a full review pass before anything ships to you. We take the time we need to make it actually useful. If your form is missing detail in key areas, we will reach out before starting so we are not guessing. A guide built in a rush is a guide that reads like it was built in a rush.
Traditional college consultants charge $200 to $400 per hour, with full service packages running $10,000 to $40,000. A CollegeMaxx guide gives you the same strategic depth: CDS data analysis, activity tier evaluation, essay angle identification, financial aid strategy, all for a single flat fee. The only thing it does not include is someone on a Zoom call billing by the hour.
Every guide is covered by our Specificity Guarantee. If any section reads like generic advice that could apply to any student, we rewrite it free. If it still misses the mark after the rewrite, we refund you in full within 14 days of delivery. The quality bar is that every section must reference something specific from your intake form. If we miss that standard, the risk is ours, not yours.
No. It is exactly the right time. Junior and senior year are execution years, not planning years. The students who arrive at 11th grade with a plan already in motion spend those two years executing it. The students who start planning in 11th grade spend them reacting. The earlier the guide, the more runway there is to act on it.
Choose how you start

Two ways in.
Same team behind both.

Fill in your name, grade, and email, then pick the path that fits where you are. Both land in our inbox the moment you hit the button.

→
Ready to start? Get the full intake.You already know you want the guide. We email you the payment details and the full intake form together. Complete it, and our team crafts your personalized guide in 7 to 10 business days. The fastest route from here to a finished roadmap.
→
Want specifics first? It's free.Pick this option and 8 quick questions appear right here on the page, no separate site, no cost. GPA, target schools, activities, testing, and where they feel strongest and most unsure. Submit, and we reply with a personalized breakdown of exactly what we would do for their profile.
→
Either way, nothing generic ships.Every guide is built from what your student actually submits and reviewed by our team before delivery. The path you pick only changes where you begin, not what you get.
Tell us where you are
Name, grade, email, and how you'd like to begin. Choose the free pre intake and a few more questions appear right here on this page. Whichever you pick, it hits our inbox immediately and we take it from there.

A few quick questions about the student
Free
No cost, no commitment. This is what lets us tell you exactly what we would do for their profile.
🔒  We never share your info. Every guide is reviewed by our team before it ships to you.
Privacy Policy
Effective July 20, 2026

What we collect. When you submit a form on this site, we collect the information you provide: student first and last name, your email address, the student's grade level, how you would like to begin, and any optional questions or intake responses you choose to share. Intake and pre intake forms may collect additional academic information such as GPA, coursework, activities, test scores, and target schools, all of which you provide voluntarily.

How we use it. We use this information for one purpose: delivering our services. That means sending you the intake or pre intake form, preparing your personalized guide or assessment, processing payment when you choose to purchase, and communicating with you about your order. We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with third parties for their marketing purposes.

Service providers. We rely on a small number of tools to operate: Netlify processes form submissions, and a payment processor handles transactions when you purchase. Each receives only the information necessary to perform its function and is bound by its own privacy commitments.

Students and minors. Our services are designed to be purchased by parents or guardians, or used by students with parental knowledge. We collect only the academic information needed to prepare the guide, and we treat all student information with strict confidentiality. If you are a parent and would like information about your student removed, contact us through the form on this page and we will delete it.

Retention and deletion. We keep submission and intake data only as long as needed to deliver your guide and provide follow up support. You may request deletion of your information at any time by reaching out through the contact form on this page.

Changes. If we update this policy, the new version will be posted here with a revised effective date.

Terms of Service
Effective July 20, 2026

The service. CollegeMaxx provides personalized college preparation guides and assessments based on information you submit through our intake forms. Guides are informational and strategic in nature. We do not guarantee admission to any institution, and no statement on this site should be read as a promise of any admissions outcome.

Delivery. Completed guides are delivered within 7 to 10 business days of receiving a completed intake form. If your intake is missing information we need, we will reach out before starting, and the delivery window begins once we have what we need.

The Specificity Guarantee. If any section of your guide reads like generic advice that could apply to any student, we will rewrite it at no charge. If the rewritten section still does not meet that standard, we will refund your purchase in full, provided the refund is requested within 14 days of delivery.

Your responsibilities. The quality of your guide depends on the accuracy and completeness of the information you submit. You agree to provide truthful information and to use the guide for personal, non commercial purposes only.

Intellectual property. Guides are licensed to you for personal use. Reselling, republishing, or distributing guide content is not permitted. All university names and logos referenced on this site are trademarks of their respective institutions, used for identification only, and imply no affiliation or endorsement.

Limitation of liability. To the maximum extent permitted by law, CollegeMaxx is not liable for indirect or consequential damages arising from use of the service. Our total liability is limited to the amount you paid for your guide.

Changes. We may update these terms from time to time. Continued use of the service after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.