Accolade
Streamlining the college application counseling process.
ROLE
TIMELINE
Oct - Dec 2025
TOOLS
Figma, Adobe Illustrator
CONTEXT
RESEARCH
FRAGMENTED WORKFLOWS
Student information and communication spread across disconnected tools.
ADMINISTRATIVE OVERHEAD
Manual coordination and follow-ups consumed significant time.
LIMITED VISIBILITY
Counselors lacked a clear view of student progress and deadlines.
PROBLEM
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Disconnected tools force independent college counselors to spend 10-15 hours per week on administrative work, limiting the time they can dedicate to student guidance.
We realized the opportunity wasn't to replace the tools counselors already relied on, but to reduce the operational overhead created between them. Since most counselors had deeply embedded workflows, forcing a complete behavior change would create more friction than value.
Instead, we shifted our focus toward building solutions that could integrate naturally into existing workflows without disrupting the way counselors already worked.
SOLUTION
Counselors can quickly track application status, essay progress, and next steps without having to switch between tools.
Students and counselors can manage college lists, track application requirements, and quickly access school-specific essays and documents.
AI-generated activity and edit summaries provide counselors with quick visibility into student engagement, essay revisions, and recent progress across documents.
DESIGN PROCESS
Counselors often have limited time between meetings, so the dashboard interface prioritized deadlines, student risk, meetings, and next steps to support faster decision-making.
I explored various layouts to understand how counselors navigate large amounts of student data. Feed-based systems reduced scannability, spreadsheets lacked contextual guidance, and collapsible sections added friction.
The final modular-tab hybrid balanced visibility and organization, keeping key information accessible while moving secondary content into tabs to reduce cognitive overload.
Progress indicators, completion states, and status labels to help counselors identify trends, blockers, and students needing intervention.
BRANDING
I approached branding as an extension of the product experience, aiming to create a space that feels warm, human, and encouraging throughout a typically stressful process. Rather than leaning into standard corporate design patterns, my goal was to emphasize growth and support while maintaining an academic tone.
TAKEAWAYS
[01] EMBRACE EXPERIMENTATION & IMPERFECTION
Perfection can slow you down in fast-paced environments, especially in the early stages of building a startup. The most meaningful progress comes from shipping quickly, learning from feedback, and iterating rather than trying to get everything right the first time.
[02] DESIGNING FOR MULTIPLE USERS MEANS THINKING IN SYSTEMS
Designing for multiple users required thinking beyond individual interfaces. Effective design comes from understanding how data, actions, and users connect across the product, not just how each screen looks.
[03] BRANDING STARTS WITH A FEELING
Effective branding extends beyond colors and typography. It's about defining a clear feeling and consistently designing toward it, using every visual and interaction to support that experience.
HUGE SHOUTOUT TO MY TEAM & MENTORS <3
