Virginia student, 16, builds free college-prep platform Scholark
Shriyan Avadhanula, a 16-year-old junior at Henrico High School in Virginia, has built Scholark, a free digital platform offering college-preparation resources. He said he started it after finding college information scattered, hard to interpret and often behind paywalls, including a $49.99 prompt to view practice-test scores. Begun as a GPA calculator, it now includes AP test preparation and an admissions prediction tool. He spent about two and a half to three years building it using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and said over 10,000 users have accessed it since its 2025 launch.
Source
Times of India — Top · read the original report ↗
Desk check · compared with the source
What the desk checked (5)
- Scholark has been accessed by more than 10,000 users since its launch in 2025. — Attributed to Avadhanula himself; no independent traffic data cited in the source.
- Avadhanula is a 16-year-old junior at Henrico High School, Virginia, studying the IB curriculum. — Stated as fact in the source; no external documentation referenced.
- He spent roughly two and a half to three years building and revising the platform. — Described in the source as his own estimate.
- An online resource asked him to pay $49.99 to see his score after about 50 practice questions. — Figure appears in the source as his recollection; the provider is not named.
- He scored four out of five on the AP Computer Science Principles exam using an early version of the platform. — Self-reported in the source, not verified.
Analysts’ view opinion
Strip away the feel-good framing and this is a story about a public-information failure being patched by a teenager. College admissions data is largely public, yet it reaches students scattered, unstandardised and often behind a paywall — and a $49.99 gate on seeing your own practice score is a design outcome, not an accident. Scholark is a useful workaround, but a single student's side project is a fragile substitute for what schools, testing bodies and admissions systems could deliver at scale.
- The underlying problem is curation and standardisation, not scarcity: the story says the information existed but was disjointed, difficult to interpret and sometimes paywalled.
- Cost is the sharper equity issue — students who can pay for subscriptions and counselling get a smoother path, which is precisely the gap a free tool narrows without closing.
- On governance, the admissions-prediction feature is the most sensitive piece; showing the underlying data and refusing to claim full accuracy is better practice than the opaque estimators the student says he encountered.
- Sustainability is the classic weakness of volunteer-built public goods: one founder, no stated funding or institutional backing, and a platform he still calls a work in progress.
- AI-assisted question generation modelled on observed exam style raises quality-assurance and intellectual-property questions that no external body, on this account, has reviewed.
What to watch — Watch whether schools, districts or testing organisations move to make free, standardised prep and admissions data available themselves — and whether Scholark can survive its founder's own college years without funding or institutional support.
The story rests largely on the student's own account: the 10,000-plus user figure, the accuracy of the prediction tool and the quality of the AI-generated practice questions are not independently verified, and it establishes nothing about learning outcomes.
Deep dive
Research brief · 8 facts · 4 dates · exam-readyThe brief
Context
Shriyan Avadhanula, a 16-year-old junior at Henrico High School in Virginia, built a free digital college-preparation platform called Scholark after finding that college admissions information was scattered across many websites, hard to interpret and often locked behind paywalls. He began with a simple GPA calculator and college admissions prediction tool in his freshman year and expanded it into a platform with AP test preparation and admissions resources. He learned the technical skills through online programs and from his father, who works in software development. The platform, launched in 2025, has been accessed by more than 10,000 users.
Key facts
- Shriyan Avadhanula is 16 and a junior at Henrico High School, Virginia, pursuing IB coursework while playing varsity soccer and competitive pickleball.
- Scholark began in his freshman year as a basic GPA calculator and college admissions prediction tool.
- He estimated spending roughly two and a half to three years building and revising the platform.
- It was built using HTML, CSS and primarily JavaScript, with AI later used to identify bugs in thousands of lines of code.
- He completed about 50 practice questions on an online resource before being asked to pay $49.99 for a subscription to see his score.
- He wrote around 50 questions modelled on College Board phrasing and trained an AI agent to generate similar questions.
- He used an early version of Scholark to study for AP Computer Science Principles and scored four out of five.
- More than 10,000 users have accessed Scholark since its launch in 2025, with traffic peaking around AP exam season.
Timeline
- Freshman year of high schoolAvadhanula decides to build his own alternative, starting with a GPA calculator and an admissions prediction tool.
- While preparing for AP Computer Science PrinciplesEncounters a $49.99 paywall after roughly 50 practice questions; resolves to keep his platform free.
- Over about 2.5-3 yearsBuilds and revises Scholark, adding AP study guides, college-planning resources and an admissions prediction feature.
- 2025Scholark launches; more than 10,000 users access it, with traffic peaking during AP exam season.
Who has a stake
- Shriyan Avadhanula — Student-founder who built Scholark for himself and now maintains a platform he calls a work in progress.
- High school students applying to college — Gain free, curated access to GPA calculation, AP preparation and admissions prediction resources.
- Paid test-preparation platforms — Face a free alternative to subscription models such as the $49.99 prompt Avadhanula encountered.
- College Board (AP exams) — Its question phrasing and exam formats are what Avadhanula studied and modelled practice questions on.
- His father and friends — Father, a software developer, helped him learn technical skills; friends gave candid feedback that shaped revisions.
Why it matters
The story shows how paywalls and fragmented information create a hidden cost barrier in college preparation, and how a student-user can design a cheaper, clearer alternative. It also illustrates practical, self-taught use of coding and AI tools by a school student to solve an everyday information problem, and the transparency question in admissions-prediction tools that give differing estimates without disclosing their data.
UPSC angle
Prelims pointers
- Scholark: free digital college-preparation platform built by Shriyan Avadhanula, launched 2025, 10,000+ users.
- Built with HTML, CSS and primarily JavaScript; AI used for debugging and generating practice questions.
- AP (Advanced Placement) exams are scored out of 5; Avadhanula scored 4 in AP Computer Science Principles.
- Paywall encountered: $49.99 subscription demanded to view scores on about 50 practice questions.
- Henrico High School, Virginia, USA; the student also pursues IB coursework.
- Scholark's admissions prediction feature compares user-entered data with publicly available admissions data and displays the underlying data.
Mains framing
College preparation has become an information-processing burden as much as an academic one: data on admissions statistics, requirements and test practice exists, but it is scattered across many websites, presented as a 'big wall of text', and frequently monetised through subscriptions, as in the $49.99 prompt that Avadhanula faced after completing about 50 practice questions. This creates an equity problem, since students without money or guidance counsellors must either pay or spend disproportionate time aggregating and interpreting information themselves. Scholark's response, developed over roughly two and a half to three years using HTML, CSS and JavaScript and later AI-assisted debugging and question generation, is curation plus transparency: organising resources around the questions students actually ask, keeping access free, and showing the publicly available data behind admissions estimates rather than issuing opaque and inconsistent predictions. The founder himself refuses to claim 100 per cent accuracy. The way forward suggested by the story lies in user-centred design by those who experience the problem, open display of underlying data in predictive tools, iterative feedback from peer users, and reducing paywalls that restrict basic preparation material, while recognising that AI-generated practice content and admissions predictions need continuous validation.
Key terms
- Scholark
- Free digital platform with GPA calculator, AP test preparation, college resources and an admissions prediction tool; spelt with a 'K' for aesthetic reasons.
- AP (Advanced Placement)
- US college-level courses and exams taken in high school, scored out of 5; Avadhanula took AP Computer Science Principles.
- College Board
- The body whose AP exam question phrasing Avadhanula studied to train his AI agent to generate similar practice questions.
- GPA calculator
- Tool to compute Grade Point Average; the first and simplest component of Scholark's earliest version.
- Admissions prediction tool
- Feature comparing student-entered information with publicly available admissions data to estimate chances, while displaying the source data.
- IB coursework
- International Baccalaureate programme of study that Avadhanula was pursuing alongside sports and building the platform.
Practice questions
- Paywalls on test-preparation and admissions resources create inequity in access to higher education. Discuss with reference to student-built free alternatives.
- How can AI-assisted content generation improve access to practice material for competitive examinations, and what are the risks to accuracy and reliability?
- Examine the case for transparency in algorithmic prediction tools used in education, using the example of college admissions predictors that give differing estimates.
Grounded only in the source report — figures and dates are the source's, not inferred.