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My College Gate
Free AI college counseling for every student, forever.
1.7 million students have no access to a college counselor. Private counselors charge $300/hr. MyCollegeGate is the free alternative, an AI college counselor named Maya, available 24/7. Build your college list, write and review essays, compare your stats to real verified applicants, find scholarships, and get a personalized roadmap to your dream school. Built for first-gen and low-income students. No subscriptions, no paywalls, no data selling. Free for every student, forever. mycollegegate.com
Hey everyone 👋 I'm Gonzalo.
I went to a private school with amazing college counseling. One-on-one help, essay guidance, someone who knew me and my goals. It changed my life.
But the more I went through the process, the more I realized how broken the system is for everyone else. 1.7 million students in the US have no counselor at all. At low-income schools, the ratio hits 1,000 students per counselor. Private counselors charge $300/hr. The students who need the most help get the least.
That's why I built MyCollegeGate.
The idea is simple — take the kind of guidance I was lucky enough to receive and make it free for every student. Maya is an AI counselor who actually knows your stats, your dream school, and your background. She helps you build your college list, write your essays from scratch, review your drafts honestly, find scholarships, and plan your path — 24/7, completely free.
What makes it different from just using ChatGPT: Maya is built on real verified admission data. Students upload their actual decision letters, so when you look at a school, you see real outcomes from real applicants with similar stats, not AI guessing.
No subscriptions. No paywalls. No data selling. Free forever, with a focus on first-gen and low-income students.
I'm one person building this, so I'd genuinely love honest feedback: what's missing, what's broken, what would make this more useful. Don't hold back 🙏
Asked Maya a few questions about how to weigh reach vs target schools and the response felt really specific, not generic. Love that it's free and built for first-gen students like me.
How does Maya actually verify the real applicant stats she compares you to, and where is that data coming from in the first place?
the verification-by-decision-letter piece is what separates this from a chatgpt wrapper, most peer comparison tools just take self-reported stats at face value. genuine question on sustainability though: free forever, no ads, no subscriptions, funded by donations - a 24/7 personalized chat counselor for potentially 1.7 million students is a real LLM API bill at scale. what's the actual plan for keeping this free once usage grows past what donations alone can cover, or is that a problem you're deliberately punting on until it's real?
How does Maya actually get to know a student's strengths and goals well enough to give solid advice, especially compared to a human counselor who can read body language and ask follow-ups in real time?
The clean, no-clutter interface makes it feel like Maya is actually a friend guiding you, not another overwhelming admissions tool. Love that there are no paywalls or data-selling nonsense.
Curious how Maya handles essay feedback compared to a real human counselor, is it more surface-level grammar stuff or does it actually push back on the story and structure?
How does Maya actually compare my stats to real verified applicants without that data getting sold or shared with colleges down the line?
How does Maya actually pull the verified applicant data you mention? Is that from real submissions, third-party sources like the Common Data Set, or something else entirely?
been looking for something like this for my cousin who's applying this fall. tried the essay review feature and maya gave pretty specific feedback instead of generic tips, which was a nice surprise.
Maya sounds like a genuinely helpful tool for students who can't afford private counseling. One idea: add a way for students to share their draft essays directly with current college students or alumni from their target schools for quick feedback, since even AI sometimes misses the human perspective on culture-specific prompts.
A feature that shows nearby students who matched your profile and got accepted to the same schools would be huge. Real examples from people in your city or zip code make the data feel way more useful than national averages, and it helps first-gen students realize they are not alone in this process.
About My College Gate on Product Hunt
“Free AI college counseling for every student, forever.”
My College Gate was submitted on Product Hunt and earned 13 upvotes and 24 comments, placing #30 on the daily leaderboard. 1.7 million students have no access to a college counselor. Private counselors charge $300/hr. MyCollegeGate is the free alternative, an AI college counselor named Maya, available 24/7. Build your college list, write and review essays, compare your stats to real verified applicants, find scholarships, and get a personalized roadmap to your dream school. Built for first-gen and low-income students. No subscriptions, no paywalls, no data selling. Free for every student, forever. mycollegegate.com
My College Gate was featured in Education (78.8k followers), Artificial Intelligence (473.7k followers) and Virtual Assistants (16.1k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 139.5k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted My College Gate?
My College Gate was hunted by Gonzalo Perez. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
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Gonzalo Perez