Live offer · six founder-led seats · live online anywhere in the US · based in Glenview, Illinois
Month-to-month college consulting for families who want their student to get measurably better at the work of applying to college, and to use AI honestly while doing it. Jinwoong works with six families at a time, because that is how many he can do this way.
80+
placements at top-20 universities
11
years in private education, 10+ of them college consulting and SAT/ACT prep
8
years building production software at Amazon and Ring
6
families at a time, every session with the founder
What it is
College readiness coaching is monthly, founder-led work on the three things that decide an application: the transcript being built now, the test dates on the calendar, and the essays and activities that have to be true. It is not a tutor for one subject, and it is not an essay-writing service. Each month has one milestone, one written plan, and one report the family can read in five minutes.
“A plan is only real when it names a date.”
What is different here
An AI agent is an AI helper with one job and written rules. Your student writes the rules, the agent works through the job step by step, and a person checks the result.
Before the SAT drills or the college list, your student learns how these tools work, where they fail, and how to write a rule that gets a useful answer. That skill outlasts the service: AP classes, college, the first job.
College consulting, the SAT/ACT group, and the summer bootcamp each end with an agent the student assembled: the plan, the rules, the mistakes to watch for. The student updates the rules as the plan changes, so the agent stays theirs and keeps working after we are done.
Jinwoong reads the output with the student. The agent follows the rules the student wrote; it does not know or remember your child, and it never writes what the student submits.
A tutoring class teaches the subject. An AI app hands over a tool. Here the student learns the literacy, then builds the AI agent with a person, inside every service.
The question every family asks first
Colleges treat submitting AI’s substantive writing as fraud. So the process makes that structurally impossible: the tool reads, checks, and asks — it does not write.
CommonApp_Essay_draft3.md · voice check
14 sentences, each traced against the student’s own notes file
The draft — 14 sentences, voice-checked
The margin — questions only
The instruction — written by the student, readable by you
Read my draft against my notes file. For any sentence that does not trace back to my notes, write me one question in the margin. Do not rewrite anything, do not add a sentence, and do not give me words I could paste in.
AI asks questions here. It never writes a sentence. Every draft is checked against the student’s own notes — every sentence traces back to their own words.
Every session is with Jinwoong: UC Berkeley engineer, eight years building production software at companies including Amazon and Ring, eleven years in private education, 80+ placements at top-20 universities. The person who answers for whether the work is any good is the person doing it.
Every month opens by naming the next concrete milestone: an SAT or ACT date, an AP week, the PSAT, the earliest application deadline. Plans flex to land on that date. There is no "ongoing enrichment" here, because that is where families quietly stop getting value.
An error log, a review queue that turns feedback into the next practice block, and verification habits that keep AI from doing the thinking. It is what the industry calls an AI agent, written as a page of plain English the student can read every line of. The student builds it and maintains it, so it still works in the months you are not paying us.
Where your student started, where they are now, what is moving and what is not, and what changes next month. Short enough to read in five minutes and honest about the parts that are not working.
AI explains, quizzes, and organizes. It does not produce work your student submits. A parent approves the tools and accounts. The full position is published rather than buried in a policy page.
If a family needs subject instruction, or a licensed therapist, or simply does not need this, we say so on the consult. A seat filled by the wrong family costs us more than an empty one.
The line, in writing
It walks a missed problem back to the step that broke, drills the student on their own notes, and turns feedback into the next practice block.
No essay sentences, no homework answers, no lab write-ups. The student keeps a record of what was used, so the answer to "did you use AI?" is always a short, true one.
Which accounts, which models, which settings. Nothing runs on a student's device that a parent has not seen.
Not when the school's rule allows it and the work submitted is the student's own. Where a rule is unclear, the student asks the teacher first and keeps the answer. Where a rule forbids AI for an assignment, it is off for that assignment, full stop.
Anthropic began marking text written by Claude in August 2026. By its own description, a translation the model produces carries the mark, light proofreading mostly does not, a full rewrite removes it, and a detection tool is in private preview that includes educational organizations. We plan for the version of the world where a school can check. (Anthropic, Claude text-watermark announcement, August 2026, updated September 2026.)
“AI can explain, quiz and organize. The moment it writes the sentence, the work stops being the student's.”
Month one
The first month is the same for every family, because the order is what makes it work: the date first, then the plan, then the system, then the report.
The consult, then a written plan
Thirty minutes on what the student is actually facing and when. If there is a fit, the milestone plan and the retainer terms arrive in writing. Nothing starts until you have read them.
You keep: the plan and the terms
Thirty minutes on what your student is actually facing and when. You leave with at least one thing worth doing whether or not you hire us.
If there is a fit, you get the milestone plan and the retainer terms in writing. Nothing starts before you have read them.
The first month opens on the nearest real milestone and the study system gets built around it, with the student doing the building.
“If a family does not need us, the consult is where we say so.”
AI-Native College Readiness Coaching Retainer
By consultationbilled monthly, month to month
Pricing differs by package; the consult decides which package fits your student. No custom-build fee, no onboarding fee, no add-ons. You get the number and the terms in writing after the consult, before anything starts.
Six seats. When they are full, the next family goes on a waitlist rather than into a worse version of the program.
The honest difference
Most families comparing us are also looking at a traditional admissions consultant, and often should be. This is where the two differ, in plain terms.
| What | Typical consultant package | Coaching here |
|---|---|---|
| Who delivers | Varies. Often a counselor on staff, with a senior advisor at the sale and a team at delivery. | The founder, every session. Six families at a time so that stays true. |
| What the student ends with | A finished application. | A finished application and a study system the student built and can run without us. |
| How AI is handled | Rarely stated in writing. | Stated on this page and at /ai-safety: AI explains, quizzes and organizes. It does not produce work the student submits. |
| Cadence and commitment | A package, often priced up front for one to two years. | Month to month, anchored to the next real date. Leaving is easy by design. |
| Price | DeweySmart's 2026 pricing guide (updated August 2026), citing IECA, puts the average comprehensive package between four thousand and twelve thousand dollars, with hourly help at roughly one hundred fifty to three hundred fifty dollars an hour. | By consultation, in writing before anything starts. No onboarding fee, no add-ons. |
| If you stop | The package ends. | You keep the plans, the error log and the review queue, in tools your family owns. |
A good consultant is the right choice for many families, and we say so on the consult when it is true. The difference is what the student keeps.
“The student should be able to run the system on a day I am not there.”
The calendar decides the plan
Pick the grade. These are the milestones a typical year carries and what coaching does in each month. The next real date is where month one starts.
Junior year carries the most weight and the most dates. Every month has a milestone, and the calendar decides the plan.
October
PSAT/NMSQT
In coaching: The junior-year PSAT is the one that counts for National Merit. We treat it as the first real test day.
Spring
SAT or ACT, usually two sittings
In coaching: Dates are chosen in the fall so the practice cycles land before them. The second sitting is planned, not panic.
May
AP exams
In coaching: The review queue built in the fall does the work. May is the last two weeks of it.
Summer
The college list and first essay drafts
In coaching: A list of about ten schools built on fit and cost, and a first draft of the main essay written by the student, in the student's voice.
Typical United States calendar. Test dates and deadlines vary by school and by year; each one is confirmed against the official calendar before it goes on a plan. Coaching starts in 9th, 10th or 11th grade; senior-year deadlines are what junior year is built toward.
Paid discovery
By consultationone-time engagement
For a family or an organization that wants a decision, not a retainer. We assess the current study and application workflow, document what is actually happening, and hand back a written plan you own, whether or not you ever work with us again. It is one-time work and we never describe it as recurring revenue.
Fit, checked honestly
Five questions, answered in the browser and sent nowhere. The read at the end is the same one you would get on the consult.
Already decided? Skip the questions and request a consult.
01Is there a real date in the next six months: a test, an AP week, or an application deadline?
02Do you want the student to run the system, rather than have it run for them?
03Are you looking for someone to write or substantially edit the essays?
04Is the main need instruction in one subject, such as algebra or chemistry?
05Do you want a promise about a score or an admissions decision?
0 of 5 answered
Because the founder delivers every session personally, and six is the number he can do at this depth while still building the curriculum. Growing the number without changing the model would quietly make the product worse, so the seat count is a stated limit rather than a scarcity tactic.
You keep the study system, the error log, the review queue, and the written plans. They are built in tools your family owns and can read without us. The retainer is month to month specifically so that leaving is easy.
Both, organized around whichever milestone is next. Some months that is an SAT or ACT date; other months it is course selection, an activity list, or an application deadline. The work follows the calendar your student is actually living in.
No, and it usually should not. If instruction is working, keep it. We are building the system between sessions: what happens to a missed problem after the tutor explains it. A separate, tutor-agnostic version of just that piece is in development and not open yet; you can ask to be told when it is.
It covers the same ground: the college list, the essays, the activities, the deadlines. It is built differently. The founder delivers every session, the student builds and runs the study system, and the rules for AI are in writing. If you want a finished application above all and nothing else, a traditional consultant may suit you better, and we will say so on the consult.
Yes. Coaching is remote and runs on video calls and shared documents, so the family can be anywhere in the United States. Sessions are scheduled around the student's school day in their own time zone.
DeweySmart's 2026 pricing guide (updated August 2026), citing the Independent Educational Consultants Association, puts the average family's spend on a comprehensive package between four thousand and twelve thousand dollars, and hourly help at roughly one hundred fifty to three hundred fifty dollars an hour. Our retainer is priced by consultation and given to you in writing before anything starts, month to month, with no onboarding fee and no add-ons. We do not publish the number because the plan comes first and the number follows it.
Both, in different rooms. The student does the sessions and the building. The parent gets the monthly report in plain language, approves the tools and accounts, and joins the milestone conversations. Nobody is coached in secret.
No. The essay is drafted by the student, in the student's voice. AI can quiz the student on their own draft, list what a reader might not follow, or organize notes and deadlines. It does not write sentences the student submits, and the student keeps a record of what was used. The full position is published at /ai-safety and the rules students get are at /ai-study-rules.
When there is a real date in the next six months: a test, an AP week, an application deadline, a course decision. Sophomore spring and junior fall are the common starting points. We work with freshmen, sophomores and juniors; a current senior already deep in applications is usually better served by finishing with whoever they started with, and we say so on the consult. Starting before a date exists usually means paying for ongoing enrichment, which we do not sell.
Jinwoong Lee
Founder, AI College Prep Academy
11 years in private education, including 10+ years of college consulting and SAT/ACT prep · 80+ placements at top-20 universities · 8 years building software at Amazon and Ring · UC Berkeley 2018
Read the full backgroundCollege consulting
Thirty minutes, no pitch. You leave with at least one thing worth doing whether or not we work together.
No score, admission or placement promises. Nobody honest can make one, and we say so in writing.