About us
The story that makes us different.
19%
of a public high school counselor's time goes to college advising. It is one job among several, and not the biggest.
That is the public-school figure. Across all secondary schools, public and private together, it is 20% — and the rest of the job looks like this.
- Personal needs counseling26%
- Choice and scheduling of high school courses23%
- Postsecondary admission counseling20%
- Academic testing13%
- Occupational counseling and job placement7%
- Other non-guidance activities6%
- Teaching5%
Time use: NACAC's 2019 State of College Admission, 2018–19.
That fifth is not a small share because your counselor is bad at the job. It is small because the same person handles course scheduling, testing and the student in crisis that morning, and those things cannot wait until October.
Then it gets divided. High schools run 195:1–224:1 students per counselor, so a fifth of one person's year is shared across roughly two hundred families. At private schools the same slice is 31%. That difference is most of what people mean when they talk about an advantage.
It is also shrinking. Public-school counselors gave 28% of their time to this in 2004, measured by the same survey asking the same question.
One thing we will not tell you: that your counselor has too many students. You have probably read 372:1 somewhere. It is real, but it averages in elementary and middle schools at 571:1–694:1. High schools sit inside the profession's own 250:1 recommendation. The caseload is not the problem. The job is.
Ratios: American School Counselor Association, 2024–25, across the 35 states reporting by grade band.
Where this came from
Ayan Gupta
Founder & College Advisor
High school prepares you with the skills to succeed anywhere.
I started advising in college, when friends and family began calling about their kids. Those calls turned into an online community of several thousand where I shared advice for several years.
Across that community and a few hundred one-on-one sessions, the same questions kept coming back with different names on them. About 80% of college counseling is guidance that is the same for everyone; only around 20% is truly specific to one student. Admission Yogi gives you that 80% for a fraction of private-counselor pricing, so you can spend on the 20% when it actually matters.
My belief: high school prepares you with the skills to succeed anywhere — not to chase a name on a diploma.
Entrepreneur · Forbes Under 30 Seattle · University of Washington Computer Science · Developer Relations @ Microsoft and GitHub
What we believe
Starting early sets the foundation
Ninth and tenth grade come with two contradictory messages: there is nothing to do yet, and you are already behind. Neither is true. These years are crucial to set the foundation for your application so it tells a story.
Personalized guidance, without the price tag
Private advisors have traditionally cost $5,000–$10,000, which prices out most of the families who need the help. But about 80% of college counseling is the same guidance repeated — so we built that 80% to work at scale.
Helping you make decisions without the myths
"You need to take 12 APs", "You need to create a club to get into an Ivy". It is exhausting, and none of it is telling the full story. We would rather explain the reasoning than hand you a rule, because no single answer fits every family.
What we won't tell you
Things a family reasonably wants that we have decided not to supply. Other sites will give you all of them.
We won't quote an admit rate.
Nobody publishing one can tell you what it would have been without them. The stories page carries what families said, attributed to them, and stops there.
We won't pretend there is one right number of APs.
We will tell you what is typical — roughly two AP-level courses by the end of tenth grade — and then tell you it depends on what your school offers and what your child can carry. A site that gives you the number without that second half is selling certainty, not guidance.
We won't pretend this replaces a private counselor entirely.
About a fifth of this work is genuinely specific to one student. Most families never need it. If yours does, we will say so rather than pretend the rest was the whole job.
We won't tell you that you're already behind.
Manufactured urgency is the oldest tactic in this industry and it lands on a fourteen-year-old. Start in ninth grade and you have room. Start later and we will tell you what still moves.
How to reach us
One address, and a person reads it. It is the same one the Get help button uses inside the product.
See where your student stands.
Three minutes, no call, nothing charged. A readiness score and a first month you can look at before deciding anything.